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COPyRlGHT DEPOSrr. 



A COUNTRY 
STORE WINDOW 



BY 

HERBERT HOLMES 



T^z^pz^pcrzr^ilir, 



THE 



Bbbcy press 

PUBLISHERS 

114 

FIFTH AVENUE 

Condon NEW YORK montrcal 



A4 



THF I I8RARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Co?-iEs RacEivED 

MAR. 26 1901 

Copyright entry 

CLASS CVXXc. N» 

COPY B. 






Copyright, 1901, 

by 

THE 

Hbbey press 



INTRODUCTIOR 



What are my Gifts ? God knows ; I cannot tell, 
Nor fear lest He hath given me but one. 

My duty is to use that talent well ; 

My Glory — in Results ; my Hope, "Well done.'* 

No tales have I, but just a few ideas; 

No message, even — save, being somewhat 
human, 
Some epigrams. I love all kinds of tears 

And dedicate my volume to A Woman. 

Thus far have I remained in port ; too frail 
To venture out where many a gallant crew 

Hath fought his prize. But, now I hoist my sail ; 
Blow, friends, and take me out to sea with 
you. 



8 Contents. 

PAGE 

The Lover to Sir John Suckling 56 

Our "Art" Critics 57 

The V/ord We All Wait For 58 

Work 59 

Our Enemy 60 

A Game of Tennis 61 

The Hudson River 6^ 

The Evils of Learning 65 

Reflections on the Dead Washington 66 

The Curse in the Cup of Gold 70 

On the Death of a Great Man 72 

Confessions 73 

L It Is Not Just 73 

II. Youth and Its Age 73 

III. Thou Wilt Not Find 74 

IV. When Thee I Saw 75 

V. Where Is Your Heart 76 

VI. Where Thine Eyes Turn 77 

VII. I Dream, I Dream 78 

VIIL It Is Thy Heart 78 

IX. What Can I Do 79 

Love, the Unknown 81 

Society 83 

Taylor's Goethe's Faust 84 

To One Acting in the "Bauble Shop" 85 

Stanzas in the Old Style 86 

A Prayer 91 

The Rhine 92 

A Piece of Sentiment 94 

The Woman's Way 95 

Rumors 96 

Summer Dreams 97 

Aubade 99 



Contents. 9 

PAGE 

No Reed, This loo 

O, Little Child 102 

To a Girl Spoiled by Society 103 

The Forest of Sin 104 

For an Album io5 

Love and Intellect 107 

The Nature Cure io8 

Another Sonnet on Nature 109 

Sonnet no 

Love, the Known m 

The Traitor's Flight 112 

Sonnet ii3 

The Light That Fails Not 114 

Song 115 

Christmas Eve 116 

God, Browning, You and Me 119 

One Touch of Light, One Touch of Love 120 

A Kiss 122 

Nineteenth Century Tendency 124 

V/inter Roses to a Singer 125 

The Bores 126 

A Swoon at the First Whiff of Summer 127 

To an Old Book Belonging to a Young Girl 128 

Poetria Ventura 129 

Away from the World I Mock It 131 



An Echo for "Pippa." I34 

For an Album i35 

To a Wife 136 

Art 137 

Whatever Your Mood Says 138 

My World 140 

Two Poets 141 



10 Contents. 

PAGE 

An Observation 142 

Ode to Wagner I43 

A Model Birthday Ode 145 

The Flower That You Swear By 148 

Says One Lover to Another 149 

A Piece of Moralizing 150 

A Tale 151 

Eyes of Hers 153 

Apostrophe to a Violin 154 

A Change 155 

World Sorrow 156 

Major and Minor 157 

*'De Te Fabula"— Tammany 158 

Art 159 

The Lost Art 160 

The Eternal Battle 161 

My Mistress Art 162 

An Allegory 163 

Innocence 170 

Song 171 

The Far-aways 172 

France — September 9, 1899 173 

A Fair Exchange 180 

A Keynote 181 

Madam 182 

Mary 183 

Along With "Landor's Poems" 184 

Written in the Same 186 

The Outcast 187 

Song 188 

The Bather 189 

Her Answer 190 

Reciprocal — a Sketch 191 



Contents. 1 1 

PAGE 

Song 194 

Paderewski 195 

Virginia 197 

All That It Is Possible to Know 203 

Lines on a Book Underlined 204 

Song 205 

Touchstone's Lenten Poem 206 

A Real Impromptu 209 

A Street Seller 210 

The Soul 212 

Burdens 213 

A Theme With Variation 214 

Hesitation 215 

St. Paul 216 

Music 217 

Sonnet 218 

The First Act 219 

Points of View 220 

The Tear and the Woman 221 

The Immortal Chord 223 

The Performer 225 

The Poet 227 

The Prophet 228 

The Value of Failure 230 

O, Tempora ; O, Mores 232 

The Rise of the Self-Made Man 234 

Growing Horizons 235 

My College World 237 

Truth 238 

Marriage of the Present with the Future 239 

The Inevitable 240 

Beethoven 241 

His Shadow to Louis XV 242 



12 Contents. 

PACB 

The Great Man Who is Always with Us 243 

Tragi-Comedy 244 

The Ideal Woman 245 

A Mare's Nest 246 

Music 247 

God's Love 248 

The Wonder-Workers 249 

Outline for a Tragedy 250 

The Song Journey 254 

A Vacation Letter 256 

Woman 260 

Song 261 

Translation 262 

The Immortal Dynasty 263 

Studies in Light and Shade 265 

The Last Straw 269 

Phantasmagoria 270 

Sonnet 272 

The Coward 273 

Hearts of Hearts 274 

The Place of Prayer 275 

Songs of American Yeomen 276 

To Mary on Going Into the Country 282 

The North and South Poles 283 

Education for the Poor 284 

A Pleasant Thought 286 

An Essay on Byron 287 

The Attache of the Foreign Legation 280 

To the "Patron" of Letters 289 

The Poetic Feeling in Art 290 

Temperance 291 

Rich Wage Earners 292 

The End and the Means 293 



Contents. 13 

PAGE 

The Means to an End 294 

Christian Missions 296 

The Little Plaster Gods 297 

The Real Man 299 

Beethoven's First '"Romance" 301 

"Yes" or "No" ? 302 

O, Love 303 

Modern Art 304 

A Toast 305 

Prose— "Et Praeteria Nihil" 306 

A Revision of My "Sketches" 307 

Youth 309 

Prosperous, Cheap-Souled Prophets 310 

The Flower of Refinement ! 311 

The Question 312 

Borrowed Feathers 313 

The Real World 314 

The Soul to the Body 315 

The Feminine Spirit 316 

A Note on Keats 321 

Shakespeare 322 

The Business Prostitute 324 

The Religion in Fashion 325 

An Appeal to the Honor of Reputable Authors 327 

Mary Blessington in "A Cup of Tea" 328 

To Mr. and Mrs. A. T 329 

The Crystal Commonwealth 33^ 

A Temperance Sermon 332 

To Nikola Tesla 334 

The Spirit of "Walden" 335 

Capital Punishment 33^ 

Letter to Dr. Pontifex Maximus Giltedge. — From 

John Smith 337 



14 Contents. 

J' ACE 

Prisons and Colleges 339 

The New Woman 340 

The Feathered Finger 341 

"To the Glory of God," in memory of J. J. Bom- 

baster 345 

Bohemian "Mimi" — Lines V/ritten on her Fan.... 346 

The Author 348 

An Apology for Being "Involved" 349 

The Agnostic "Circle" 350 

"Handle Me and See" 35i 

A Possible Use for My Poems 352 

Life's Paradox 353 

The Comforter 354 

Modern Art ' 355 

Song 356 

"Whom the Lord Loveth He Chasteneth" 357 

The Panorama 358 

In the Philippines, February, 1899 359 

Broad Puritanism 361 

Anybody's Wisdom 362^ 

A Miracle 2>^^ 

Realities and Reflections 364 

Emerson 365 

Weather-Wisdom 366 

Christ's Divine Birth 367 

Magazine Editors 368 

The Pack Horse 369 

Man — The Touchstone Z7^ 

Christmas Morning 371 

The Fin de Siecle Crusader 372 

The Friend Z7^ 

Children 374 

My First Apology 375 



A Country Store Window. 



MY LAST APOLOGY, 

Much that I print now may not stand the test. 

''Why print, then?" ask you; sometimes you 
may add, 
''Print just a little, perish all the rest." 

Like Browning's "Piper," that was born to 
pad. 
Suppose that is the best which seems the worst? 
So, if I print what / alone think best 

All that I print may be supremely bad. 
This, then, my last apology, read first. 



16 A Country Store Window. 



THE CHOICE OF A MUSE. 

Do you begin, 
One of you Muses ; I have not the art 
To foster eloquence, nor yet the heart 
To force it. Let Good rather fall asleep 
In silence than be roused to sing and leap 
Like automatic dolls and puppets. Muse, 
Whichever one the better critics choose. 

Do you begin. 



An Incantation. 17 



AN INCANTATION TO THE LOST MUSE, 

Luna steals lymph and laundries her garb 

To the pale tint of her mood ; 
Dead v/ere that studious midnight orb, 

Unrobed of the silver flood. 
Our music-makers now absorb 

More midnight oil than blood. 

Wherever in this wide Universe 

Thou, O Muse, art fled, 
Return, breathe Song into our verse 

And raise it from the dead. 

Chorus : The Song's the Soul of the verse, 
The Gift of the Muse ; 
Men work at it; then, make it 
worse 
With the words they use. 

My Muse sits on a lonely height 
Far, far from this world's fever. 

Where her reverend Soul's Song 
Will never, never leave her. 



18 A Country Store Window. 

Chorus: O, Muse, we feel thy song, 
A seed in our heart 
Pressing to grow, but how long 
Ere the Earth part! 

Silent, bright, like the stars at night. 

For she speaketh never. 
No, I dare not do that wrong 

Of the tongue's endeavor. 

Chorus: O, Muse, we hear thy song, 
A vague cry of pain; 
But the words of our mouth do 
it wrong 
And we labor in vain. 

Such is the true muse of my faith. 



Ah ! but who looks for pleasure ! 

Well, there's many a maiden, flower laden, 
Will trip you any measure. 

So pipe away, then, with your Clay, then ; 
This is the thing the World applauds. 
This is the thing the World enjoys, 

Toys, 

Gauds. 



An Incantation. 19 

Chorus : Oh, let the song or the sorrow- 
In tears break away 
And grow towards the sun of to- 
morrow, 
The hope of to-day. 



20 A Country Store Window. 



A RETROSPECTION. 

Too perfect was her Soul to need the world, 
Through which old men have passed, to make 
it rife. 
An angel when born, what need to have her 
whirled 
Around the dark monotony of life! 
She touched the earth and then passed swiftly 
over, 
Leaving each a gift — her baby breath 
Remembered, thus perpetually to love her; 
Naught to regret, for Life is darker than her 
death. 



A Prayer for Rain. 21 



A PRAYER FOR RAIN. 

Water, of old was given to those who pray. 

Cooled from the rocks ; 
So may be given to us, O Lord, this day, 

For fields and flocks. 
Grant us living waters and fresh rains 

Of a new shower, 
Whereby Death is lost and Life regains 

Its utmost power. 



22 A Country Store Window. 



SONG. 

While their shadows mingle and the drowsy 

trees 
Go drifting with a lazy breeze 

Strayed from the skies, 
Upward we gaze, forget world scars 
In wonder of the world of stars, 

Like our Love's eyes. 

When comes the time for sunburnt reapers 
And autumn's fall of leaves, we weepers 

Laugh awhile, 
But — w^hen dead leaves have ev'n departed 
They seem to us, the broken-hearted, 

Like our Love's smile. 

O, Love, if your love is as great 

As mine (and true love laughs at fate), 

How can we part 
When comes that ever joyful Spring 
And mated Lark ? Hark, hear it sing 

Like my Love's heart. 



Conscience. 23 



CONSCIENCE, 

The candle light falls on the page 
Of Manuscript that had an age 
Born in an old monkish cell, 
And from the hand, I could not tell, 
It seemed born of a monkish brain. 
The candle spluttered, the dreary rain 
Tapped against the window pane. 
'Twas midnight when I sat me down 
In slippered feet and dressing gown 
Before the desk that held the tome. 
Now would I make me glad at home. 
Twas all my own. Sometimes a mouse 
( Nothing that my mind could rouse 
From careful study) scratched the floor. 
I was alone and locked the door, 
While I comfortably turned 
The pages, and the candle burned. 

I slammed the book and fastened tight 
The clasps ; the draught blew out the light. 



24 A Country Store Window^ 

I awoke when I had deeply slept; 

And the light groped in my dark room 

Like morning knocking at a tomb. 

Up the creaking staircase crept 

A veiled form that wept and wept ; 

And as upon the hollow boards 

The tears dropped slowly, all the chords 

That kept my Soul in Music, swept 

At one great discord all that's sweet 

And ever could be, from my heart. 

Ye Gods, how frantic doth it beat, 

That everlasting discord, part — 

Part, nay, all of future life. 

Mounting, foot by foot, she stepped, 

Yea, stepped into my room and crept 

Into my heart's most cruel nerve. 

Oh ! the pain ; 'twas like a knife 

That ever cut these aching chords 

Of my heart. Gods, I deserve 

The shrieking pain of those discords. 

'Twas she who is and is to be; 

'Twas Conscience; and she sickened me^ 



Thomas Hood. 25 



THOMAS HOOD. 
A. 

He sang the "Song of the Shirt." 

With a tzvang and a twang the lyre 
Struck he — and the toiHng Dirt 

Stooped down to help the Mire. 
He sang the "Bridge of Sighs," 

While death was at the door. 
Would you have it otherwise? 

The Bard was sick — and poor. 

With a TWANG he struck the lyre 
And then the world did smile. 

Twice tenderly swept the lyre — 
And left it for a while. 

Yes, cold hearts that were shut 

While his few sad years were flying. 

You crowded in haste to his hut — 
But to find the poet dying. 



26 A Country Store Window. 



For each step he took 

In advance of his race, 
A contemptuous look 

And a blow in the face 
Struck him back to the ranks; 

And he labored there for awhile; 
But for neither song nor smile 

Received he thanks. 

C. 

When Bread was the gold he lusted for — 
Did you give him a stone when he asked for 
bread ? 

Gor forbid ! 
But if you did 
What wonder at times he gave you rhymes and 

verse 
When you asked in your filthy taste for even 



Thrice, as one who held the sacred flame 
Of undisputed Right, he summoned Fame — 

But Famine came ; 

In the name of Bread 

Ambition fled. 



Thomas Hood. 27 

Fame for the dead ! Is fame a lure 
For the living man who dies so poor 
He grows rich only when he's dead? 



Bread — for life, for love; 

But he could not move 
Sick of the soul's hunger for a cure, 
Soul sick of the wife's pale face by love made 
pure. 



D, 



Ho, for the man with the golden tongue 
Who sings all day to the old and young! 
Happy he could he sell it for bread, 

Be done at once with the hunger smart 
What, cut it out and sell the gold? 
All in a lump can life he sold? 

For his tongue was gold right through to the 
heart. 



t/yihappy he that maketh dead 
The goose that lays the golden egg. 



28 A Country Store Window. 

Tender touch at tender part 

To make the tears of the tearless start — 

Sharp as a lance at knightly tilt. 
Sing, O, for the man with the golden tongue 
Who sings all day to the old and young, 
Whose tongue's pure gold right down to the 
heart, 

Right up to the hilt 



Till the shadows creep 
From the face of the sky 

And dissolve in the deep 
And shiver and die. 

No man shall reap 

Here, save a sigh ; 

Except through a mist, 

No man shall see Christ 
Till the Dawning. 

This Record I keep 

For myself as a warning. 
So let us not weep 

Philosophy scorning — 
To-night let us sleep 

And awake in the morning. 



Song. 29 



SONG. 

Ev^N though all love is not a crown. 

Of precious stones and true; 
Though I am poor — bend thine ear down 

And know what I would do. 

Now, now, heart's dearest, on thy locks 
Take love's immortal crown, 

Till one of toil hewn from these rocks 
Shall make thee all mine own. 



30 A Country Store Window. 



SUMMER ONCE MORE. 

Look, there again sweet Summer comes 
With meditative pace, 
In long, rich robe and shining hair 
And all unconscious grace. 

Once more my summer wanders on 
And sniffs among the daisies 

In meadows where the singing sun 
Upturns their chubby faces ; 

Where grasshoppers jump out and moles 
Rip up and mice scratch over; 

The chip's about the acorn boles, 
The rabbit's snug in clover, 

They hear each other's full, fat jowls 
And whisk and run to cover. 



One of Life's Necessities. 31 



ONE OF LIFERS NECESSITIES. 

The very man I need, S. T., 
For faithful friend and hero ; 

It's just your manly modesty 
That keeps my pride at zero. 

You could I honestly admire 
And be not jealous, even 

Should you succeed where I aspire, 

A Gentleman, by Heaven. 



Soul searcher, prophesy. Fm vexed 
And cannot probe the heart of it; 

To me it happened bit by bit. 

I cannot preach, but here's my text. 

What form of grief it is to feel 
That one beloved has gone to rest, 

Hov^ v^hen beside his bed you kneel 
No voice replies from that dear breast ; 



32 A Country Store Window. 

What form of grief, what form of grief 
When in trouble you pace the street 

Or park in full, familiar leaf. 

Where he and you did often meet 



Of evenings for a quiet talk 

(With one whose heart awakes with thine !) 
When hurrying up the shady walk, 

That leads unto his home, to dine, 
You find long crepe upon the door — 

And the story sad in hollow note 
Is whispered where so oft before 

Laughing he helped you with your coat; 

What form of grief it is to turn 

With slower step from that dark home 

And feel no more his touch; to yearn 
For one who never again shall come 

To know the earth ; what, when you strove 
To feel his hands but clutched despair ; 

To grasp a something that you love 
And find naught but the empty air; 

Though tears for such I cannot spend 
Yet by my need this shall I prove, 

That though I never loved a friend, 
I know the pain of a lost love. 



One of Life's Necessities. 33 

I stretch my hand his hand to seize 
Which still I grasp in every prayer. 

O, hands, veil my deceived eyes — 
He is not there, he is not there. 

I stretch my arms, I do not wake ; 

I think I touch his warm young hair. 
But, oh! it is of fancy's make; 

He is not there, he is not there. 
What do they say ? The man is dead ? 
That his noble soul hath fled? 
Nay, he's here beside my bed, 
With the fancies of my head; 

So let the world go earn its bread. 
Was it thou or I who led? 
Thou; my soul shall follow thine. 
Myself around thyself shall twine 
Until we grow to be one vine. 
Thou and I are stronger wed 
Than ever man or woman. Dead. 

Then Silence lifted up her hand, 

Rebuked the running of the sand ; 

In the hour-glass I saw it stand 

Still where it was half through the glass 

And shake as though it dare not pass. 

I held my breath to listen ; then 

She whispered **Amen and Amen." 



34 A Country Store Window. 

Long ere our minds imagined it, 
We loved each other ere we met. 
In life we loved, love still and why? 
Because, where / am, memory 
Is all that's left of him should I 
Not know him better when I die? 



Rome. 35 



ROME. 

The Colosseum, Vatican's in Rome. Look yoti 

behind 
The Colosseum, Vatican ; there, stranger, you will 

find 
How earnest men can perish through a whim of 

thoughtless child, 
How he whom God doth nourish can by man be 

so defiled. 



36 A Country Store Window. 



HIDDEN THINGS 

Winds rattle round the bars 
And shake them in their rust ; 

Waves float up to the stars 
And glide down to the dust, 

Where hearts and precious stones 

In ivory caskets lie 
By rusty bars and bones 

All hid from mortal eye. 

Hail to the deep, my soul, 

Beneath whose guardian wave 

Many a wreck doth roll 
Restless in the grave. 



Sonnet. 37 



SONNET. 

Were flowers strewn upon the grave of Venus 
Dissolved again into the mother wave, 
Methinks I would not join that crew of mourners 
Who, blinded by the glare of what they love, 
See not their offering carried to mid-ocean, 
Wasted on a mirror of self-love. 
They are not lovers, they ; but love the thing 
That represents the passion they would feel. 
And only love to love. The flowers strewn 
Upon the reflecting sea are their own crowns. 
Venus is dead. Come, then, let's leave her grave. 
T make my goddess out of what I love. 
And thou, real image, art not of the wave, 
Pale, thin and fleeting; in flesh and blood you 
move. 



38 A Country Store Window. 



A DAY OF MELANCHOLICS. 
I. 

The unbroken sky has a dead white look 

With only the sea to repeat it; 
A world-wide wash of the cold, calm sea 

And never a shore to meet it. 

II. 

Yesterday I searched the attic with a relic hunt- 
ing craze. 

Clothed in cobwebs, dust and insects, hairy 
trunks I tried to raise, 

Great black trunks that seemed cemented to the 
dusty, musty floor. 

In the trunks I found moth-eaten work (m.ade 
by the dames of yore) 

Smelling of rats and mice and camphor, all an- 
cestral and decayed. 

There I found rich silken robes and tassels gor- 
geous, things that fade, 



A Day of Melancholies. 39 

Heavy curtains with silk linings that hung on old 
ancestral walls ; 

Light green dresses worn at balls colonial ; heavy 
Indian shawls, 

I dropped the cover ; what a host of dust and in- 
sect filled my nose; 

I thrust my head through the broken glass of a 
little window where wind blows 

And broke a cobweb that hangs even now upon 
my face. 

Horror, to think how many hundred years back 
we could trace. 

To-day I stared my prim ancestors whom famil- 
iarly I greet, 

And whirled old spinning wheels around — they 
shook the dust from off their feet. 

I thumbed rare books and histories and shut my- 
self up in the past 

And looked with pride on my own name in 
Ancient print made fast! 



HI. 

The night breeze, sallying oft from moving skies, 

its starlit camp; 
The fussy fire-fly, beneath the moon, with lighted 

lamp; 



40 A Country Store Window. 

The buzz of insects nowhere seen, among the 

darkening trees 
Whose waving forms grow tall and black against 

the moonlit skies ; 
And every thought that comes to one turns sick, 

grows mad, and dies. 

IV. 

Oh! the drizzly rain that sprinkles the pond 

and makes its shadows blink ; 
Oh ! the dreary bark of the crow that sails from 

drooping tree to tree 
O'er the muddy pond reflecting him and the vivid 

green of the grass. 
The crow forlorn floats slowly down, into a tree 

doth sink; 
A flock of sparrows seeking shelter now doth 

swiftly pass. 
To and fro is driven the rain by the heavy rain- 
soaked breeze. 
Over the mourning meadow see the dirty yellow 

sky. 
Oh! the wailing scene o'er something that must 

surely die. 
Oh ! the sound of a fall of a sigh as it breaks on 

a desolate core 
Like the fall on her knee of the weary sea as she 

faints on a lonely shore. 



A Day of Melancholies. 41 



The sea of wind strikes at the leaves and scatters 
them like ships. 

The crackling fire laughs within and up the 
chimney slips. 

The kettle sings awhile, then spits upon the teas- 
ing fire; 

And the spirit sits with broken pride to nurse his 
petted ire. 



VI. 



Around the soul the planets roll in quick obedi- 
ence. I am greater 

Than the earth (I span her girth) and every work 
of the Creator. 

Around the soul the tempests roll. In the storm 
the voice of thunder 

Peals aloud from tortured cloud — it awes me not, 
this awful wonder. 

I soar on wings to higher things and the whole 
universe doth roll 

From mine eye's vision till hands Elysian touch 
me, for I am a soul. 



42 A Country Store Window. 



VII. 

O, the bitter holiness of love! The cream of 

hell 
Gathered by the angels in a cup of sorrow. Tell, 
Tell me how you dare to pour this in the souls 

of men ! 
But Cherubim and Seraphim — answer but "Amen; 
So be it." Men shall blindly ask the truth of 

things sublime 
Till age, in melody majestic, shall toll out the 

end of Time. 



Song. 43 



SONG, 

Wait not till the evening gathers, 
Let us work while shines the sun, 

That the gray hairs of our fathers 
May rejoice at what we've done. 

When the calm of evening gathers 
And we sons have of our own, 

May we rest, as did our fathers. 
When our sons to men have grown. 

When the twilight will remind us 
We look on the parting day, 

And sigh for those we leave behind us 
Each unto himself shall say: 

Now the shades of evening gather 
My life's work on earth is sown ; 

I'll lay me down as did my father 
When life's wind had overblown. 



44 A Country Store Window. 



TO MY INSPIRATION. 

Why, when I beckon to my Mus 
For eloquence in other themes 

Stands she so near, indifferent, 
A mock to mine own idle dreams ? 

True, when I beckon she doth send 
The spirit to my thought of thee, 

But, alas, was ever penned 
The spirit as it ought to be! 



To the Children of Liberty. 45 



TO THE CHILDREN OF LffiERTY 

Aged nations that can never understand 
The love two children bear unto this Land 
Of Liberty, whence comes their Power — stand, 
For Liberty, our Mother, ruleth here. 

Rejoice, O stars of the west that shine above 
The Builders of this fabric of real love 

Which the great hearts of two lands interwove, 
For Liberty, our Guide, rules ever here. 

O, Sons and Daughters, fill your hearts with 
pride 
For lo ! your Mother standeth by your side. 
Behold how fair, how strong, how blessed, your 
guide. 
Tis Liberty, your Strength, stands ever here. 

O, favored Daughters of the fair, strong, free, 
Keep your hands busy with, let your eyes see 
With glowing pride, this Light of Liberty 
That throws its beams around this still dark 
sphere. 



46 A Country Store Window. 

Stand you before this Light with reverend feet ; 
Let your two hands across the waters meet ; 
For ever may your hearts together beat 
For Liberty, your Mother, who rules here. 



Believe in Something. 47 



BELIEVE IN SOMETHING. 

Better is the man who worships Need 
Than he who hath no God. Ay and far better 
He that hath a creed of any nature 

Than he, that Godless one, who hath no creed. 

There are two ways of following your faith, 
(Which is the only guide) by bond of Love 

Or chain of Law; Religions both. One saith 
That Love is stronger than the Law to move. 



48 A Country Store Window. 



THE USE OF STUDY. 

Go from the study of deep verse to sound, 
To Music, Melody; unearth your Soul 

And scatter it upon the air around ; 

A spring, new digged, just oozing from the 
ground. 



Epitaph. 49 



EPITAPH FOR A GOOD MAN»S TOMB, 

We seemed, ourselves, his hopeless debtor, 

For his presence gave us better 

Than we ever gave. 

Ev'n though to Thee he is not so, 

We pray Thee, good Lord, save 
His soul alive that we may go 

Not hopeless to the grave. 



50 A Country Store Window. 



WOMAN'S PART. 

When the heart of man is weary 

Where shall he find rest? 
Who knows but that weary man? 

In a woman's breast. 

When man's sorrowing heart is stirred 
To do the devil's command, 

Where can he find the warning touch 
Save in a woman's hand? 

When the heart of man is bursting, 

Bursting wide apart, 
Where can he find the soothing voice 

But in a woman's heart? 

If, when despair hath thrown his heart 
To earth, he doth complain, 

What but a woman's love can make 
God's man of him again. 



That Crow Pen. 51 



THAT CROW PEN. 

I SING of that crow, the carrion Pen 

An evil necessity of much import 
To wise, sentimental, ambitious men 

Who rejoice that it feeds on the corpse of a 
thought. 

Alas, how soon a thing is naught! 

A light peeps slyly o'er the brain 
And winks a little at a thought 

But slips as slyly back again. 

How many morals do we point 

So neatly in the head, but then 
To have them all put out of joint 

By being pecked at by the Pen. 

What sentimental episodes 

Of hearts have wandered through our brain, 
That shrieked and ran in divers roads 

At being pecked at by the Pen. 



52 A Country Store Window. 



SONG. 

Could I be glad if on thy heart 

I left no trace of pain? 
I know that if my love but smart 

I do not love in vain. 

My pleasure is the circumstance 

Of pleasure unto thee ; 
Except when those dear eyes do dance 

For any man but me. 

'Tis heaven shining in your eyes 
When you smile on my prayers. 

If not — those stars within the skies 
Sink to low burning fires. 

These hasty lines were never penned- 
Only to give thee pleasure; 

On their flying wings my heart I send 
That you may know its measure. 



A Song of the "Second Son." 5S 



A SONG OF THE ''SECOND SOW 

A girl's face have I never known, 

(Therefore sing we merrily), 
Except my grandam's in mine own, 

And that was dealt out charily. 

An ugly scar is the kiss I bear, 

(Rumpty, rumpty, ribberty). 
But what care I if she only care. 

For she's my mother Liberty. 

Our house was once a well-kept house. 

Alack, for my grandam's boudoir! 
A rat crept in, but only a mouse 

Scurried off to the good war. 

The March wind of the war's blown over. 

Up shoots the Spring. Alas, 
Some lie in the Sun and clip warm clover^ 

Or hide in the long, green grass. 



54 A Country Store Window. 

Not I — but a man, I've heard them say, 
May kill himself by thinking; 

He'll either write a book some day, 
Or drown himself by drinking. 

So, search for a home the wide world ovei 
And return — where? Anywhere; 

Only marry a loving girl and love her. 
Home is everywhere. 

A cousin's left on the snobby side ; 

By Eve, I do not know her. 
She's risen above her grandam's pride — 

I've fallen three times lower. 

I'd rather come across by chance 

My beauty on the downs, 
Than court a maid in the gilded dance 

Of unregenerate towns. 

A girl's face have I never known; 

Good men and sirs, a riddle : 
With one-half up and the other down, 

Whose balance for the middle? 



A Thought. 55 



A THOUGHT. 

Ah ! when the Soul is emptied of its storm 
Man is no more ; his name hath passed away 

The Soul it is that keeps the body warm; 
When this hath gone it is but lifeless clay. 

I tell thee, body, if thou wouldst live long, 
Live for thy Soul and it shall bless two lives. 

One here and one where Soul's great gift of song 
Rejoices, grows, gives pleasure, and thus 
thrives. 



56 A Country Store Window. 



THE LOVER TO SIR JOHN SUCKLING. 

Nay, if, sweet John, by looking well 

Her love I cannot have, 
By looking ill I may compel 

The sympathy I crave. 
I would not lose by looking well 

What looking ill could save. 



Our "Art " Critics. 57 



OUR ''ART'* CRITICS. 

Ask one who dares not speak 
Before his witty brother? 

But why not go at once and seek 
Your answer from the other ; 

Ask him who knows why, "Why?" 
"I don't know really," says he. 

Nor do I know why he should lie 
Except — he's too damn lazy. 



58 A Country Store Window. 



THE WORD WE ALL WAIT FOR. 

From the nape of her neck she lifted her warm 
brown hair 
And her round white arm did vein it as a 
wing 
Of grace that covered me, stilled with a fear. 

That dared not think she let the firm arm swing 
Around my neck. But 'twas just then I heard 

A whisper, a word I had long prayed to know ; 
Was never heard such music nor power in a 
word — 
The Power of Thrones, the Music of a will bent 
low. 



Work. 59 



WORK. 

I HEARD a man declare 

Work was beneath him. Yes, 
Yes, if the will be there 

To lay work low, it is. 



60 A Country Store Window. 



OUR ENEMY. 

If not yourself, of all men not at rest 
You'd rather be this man whom you detest? 
True, for we hate him most, it seems to me. 
Who seems to be what we were born to be. 



A Game of Tennis. 61 



A GAME OF TENNIS. 

Her strong voice by the strain of pique 
Breaks richly, and her milk-white teeth 
Smile vexedly, within their sheath 

Of blushing lips. She tries to speak 

Amiably, but one can see 

That she is piqued, for the hot blush 
Colors her skin; the long fine brush 

Her loose brown hair ; pray, let it be. 

Her deep brown eyes grow deeper stained, 
They flush, they seem to weep for shame, 
They flash and say, "You are to blame," 

They weep and say, "Please understand." 

Men's hearts grow big for smaller things. 

She bounds away, she bounds away 

To join her sister in the play, 
Off from the racquet, pique she flings. 



62 A Country Store Window. 

O, lithe, O, strong, O, bright, O, small, 
"And what is iove'?" I seek her eyes; 
"Love is nothing," she replies, 

And hits me lightly with a ball. 

O, graceful, rich, how quick each move; 
"If 'love' is naught, is pity the same?" 
"Yes ; three all." Deuce take the game ; 

I give up everything — for love. 

"In a 'love' game no points you make." 
"Why, sooth, then, I must let you win?'* 
"If you'd be won." "Well, then, begin ;" 

"I'll win in spite of — for your sake." 

"That speech is worthy of your name ; 
A manly love I want that fights 
For that in which it most delight." 

"There : 6 to 5. Fve won the game." 



The Hudson River. 63 



THE HUDSON RIVER. 

Some summer day, Oh, follow the wind 
That blows warm up the Tappan Zee, 
Fair as far as eye can see 

Before, and fair as far behind. 

Beyond the strong, broad Palisades 
The Hudson, dignified of kills, 
Winds calm and wide between low hills 

And stretching far away it fades 

By sun-white villages and towns, 

Where fishing boats bob on the rocks. 
Or low green points and busy docks 

'Mid factory smoke and buzz and groans. 

A steamboat creaking at the docks 
Twists their rheumatic rotten bones. 
Men at derricks, sawing stones. 

Hoist into barges great gray blocks. 



64 A Country Store Window. 

Beware, beware the black shad poles 
That give the river many stabs. 
O, ye small fishers of small crabs, 

Near shore you'll scoop them up in shoals. 

Pleasure yachts dart up and down 

Like aimless crows from limb to limb, 
And anchor suddenly, at whim. 

Near peaceful country seat or town. 

Tlie eye might think the river's course 
At yon green slope would meet its end, 
Or mountain barred; 'tis but a bend 

Turning with a graceful force. 

Now straight and narrow doth it run. 
Now broad between the drifting shades 
Of neighbor hills turns like the blades 

Of wet oars flashing in the sun. 



The Evils of Learning. 65 



THE EVILS OF LEARNING, 

Of two, who both their autumn days had turned, 
One was bright and cultured, one was learned ; 
One was human, one was unconcerned 
With human things, and while he ever yearned 
With eyes raised to yon silver-lined cloud 
Shunned mother earth and all her vulgar brood. 

What do dry leaves of knowledge bring, for- 
sooth ? 
They fall in the Autumn at the Springs of youth 
And choke them and, when dead, a putrid growth 
Of sneers crawls at the once pure welling mouth. 



66 A Country Store Window. 



REFLECTIONS ON THE DEAD WASHINGTON. 



Few there be within this mortal world 

Who hold their country mortal ; ev'n behold 

The Jews, into a raging sea gulf hurled, 

Sink not, but, desolate, float far and wide. 

Now, behold, how fearlessly we ride. 

That new built vessel, launched, stood out to 

sea 
Most nobly, being proud of her strong birth. 
Her proud crew, how they watched her carefully, 
Cut off from tyranny of mother earth, 
Making their own laws on their own land. 
They were a nation — by God's own command. 

II. 

This is the man who rode 'neath floral arcs, 
Raised by his country-women — (hail the sound!) 

where before 
He pushed at night through ice and saw the 

sparks 



Reflections. 67 

From half-burned villages and tools of war. 
The "Defenders of the Mothers" now has proved 
Protector of the Daughters whom he loved. 



III. 



One is made great by what he doth reveal ; 
Another, still, from what he doth conceal; 
And yet how small the individual 
Moved by the tiny wills of men, too far 
Away from God to know how small they are. 

Washington, who for a mighty cause 
Filled a continent with Wars, 
Made the world ring with applause 
Yet heard it not, for such he was, 
Who rising from the commonplace 
Drew out thence a noble race. 



IV. 



O, God, to see upon the temple's heart, 
And proudly waving from her holy crest. 
The colors of our country ! She is blessed 
Out of all nations. Church and State are one. 
Praise God. Though there be rifts upon the 
sun 



68 A Country Store Window. 

There are none in it. 

Washington is dead. 
And now we seem to look upon his face 
As there it lay in state with holy grace 
About his bed. 
A moment since that power, that mighty human 

life 
Drew divine circles 'round him — but now he is 

dead. 



Whatever thing your conscious or unconscious 
Outward eye may catch in rolling 'round, 
That maketh full equipment of your world 
From pole to pole, from heaven to earth, must 

perish. 
The unknown soul, the only thing that is. 
All things are an illusion to this soul 
Excepting love, hence love is all the world, 
Pines not at distance (as all nature does 
Which measures but a part) is even here 
While yet a thousand miles away. Alas, 
Love that feels distance is but love in part ; 
When near, 'tis but a warning of the heart. 
One love we shall not know till Vv^e have seen 
The Unknown and matter fades as though it had 

not been. 



Reflections. 69 



VI. 



It must have sapped the hearts of those who bled 
With that face high among them in the lead; 
How empty felt those hearts when they began to 

fill 
Who knew thy face through fame, to see thy 

face so still. 
O, how must it awe those hearts who dread 
A face they've never seen, to see it dead. 

VII. 

God-seeking man by all means seek a God 
Though he be one unknown; more for this rea- 
son. 
Place Fear and Trust and Love in Trust and 

Wisdom, 
As a pure child lives to an Unknown Father, 
Else shalt thou worship idols and the like. 
The Unknown God is God of all salvation. 



70 A Country Store Window. 



THE CURSE OF THE CUP OF GOLD, 

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, 
And, of all, a good woman's the fairest to see ; 

But the fairest of all of them scorns my love 
And makes Hell of a beautiful world for me. 

Love is the wine and the Cup is your Soul, 
Oh ! pour pure wine in your golden bowl. 

Drink (but beware of the curse in thy cup 
That lies in the bottom. Fill, fill it up 
Full to the top. Drink — not too much 
Or you'll love the dregs at the lip's first touch. 

But, oh ! for the purest wine must hold 
The dregs of earth, the lees of hell 
That settle down in the goblet of gold 
Like the seven spirits come to dwell — 
That bubble up in the living cup 
When the Wine is there and all tastes well. 



The Curse of the Cup of Gold. 71 

So drink, my soul, of the dregs and lees 
'Till you learn to love what is cheaply sold; 
So that any woman may serve to please 
The curse that lies in you, Cup of Gold. 

Oh ! what a curse — there is none worse, 
That double damnation — to love one's curse. 

But, oh ! that my love might love to be 
My fay in my cup of gold for me. 



72 A Country Store Window. 



ON THE DEATH OF A GREAT MAN. 

What age improves can not be manifest 

'Till age hath proved it. Thou may'st call one 

best 
But canst not tell how great he then vi^ill be 
Except thou knov^'st the number of years man 

hath to live. 

Thou canst not put too great a price upon 
The head of him w^ho after death grows greater, 
Stampt with the stamp of Truth, Sun after Sun, 
He hath a claim upon all human nature. 
Judge not the great Dead; take — what they are 
pleased to give. 



Confessions. 73 



CONFESSIONS. 

To Vibgyor, a man of many moods; 

A spirit lying in the haunted woods 

Of maple, ebony, sycamore and deal 

Fashioned by mortal to this body real. 

A spirit of Smishine and of Rain 

For which no human yet hath found a name 

But that in which it dwells, which is the same. 

Is called by men and me a violin. 



It is not just 
In you to doubt and in your doubt to tease 
Me into more confessions ; so I trust 

You'll not doubt these. 



XL 



Youth and its age 
The tender eye may see within a tear 
Circling; shattered now upon the page 

We read in fear. 



74 A Country Store Window. 

So swift is man. 
Boyhood, youth, manhood whirling to Light, 
Melt in th' horizon; but a few years can 

Keep him in sight. 

O, Large-eyed Love 
That keeps forever the Memory of man, 
Keener than years beyond that Sphere doth move 

Of Life's Span. 



in. 



Thou wilt not find 
How I can labor for thy love and mark 
Thy words that do not hurt as somehow kind, 

Though they be dark. 

Thou wilt not see 
(It seemeth mad presumption, I suppose) 
How all my work is work of love for thee, 

Beneath the rose. 

My plea, forsooth ! 
Am I all words and not one single deed? 
Is it not deed enough to tell the truth 

If one's heart bleed 



Confessions. 75 

To prove it so? 
I have done things thine eyes have never felt: 
Know then, though sown beneath their light to 
grow, 

Alas, they melt 

Beneath thy scorn. 
They are not plants to flourish 'neath thy pride. 
Forgive me if my justice prove a thorn 

Within your side. 

Be thou content. 
Spite of thy hurled and withering flame of scorn 
This purifying flame is never spent, 

Eternal, Heaven born. 



IV. 



When thee I saw 
Somehow I thought I was not made for thee, 
But reading the Old and New Books of the Law 

I now see 

Love is a tool . 
That shapes the rough material of old law, 
Thus, for it needs it, thou shalt shape my soul 

Around its core. 



76 A Country Store Window. 

Love Is thy tool. 
God supplies the Soul which woman makes, 
Oh ! what He gives, make what thine own pure 
Soul 

Loves — for our sakes. 



V. 



Where is your heart 
That you have none to mend a broken one. 
Gladly would I learn the secret Art 

That makes it stone. 



Not art, I ween. 
But Nature cooled to stone your glowing life, 
Ii. looking back on flames of what hath been, 

Like Lot's wife. 



VL 



Where thine eyes turn 
Mine follow and the passion of my Soul 
Grows sadly dreaming in them and I yearn 

In their control. 



Confessions. 77 

O, I would loose 
The benediction light of the full stars 
That through deep night keep pouring their cool 
dews 

Upon Earth's scars. 

Yea, this I own. 
To feel the light of pity from thine eyes 
Dissolving through mine own and sinking down 

Make this to rise 

And hate thy pity 
As something worthy of a wounded pet. 
Surely man may claim more than weak pity, 

Child of Regret. 

Where thine eyes turn 
Mine linger and the passion of my Soul 
Grows madly earnest in them and I yearn 

I dream, I dream 

For their control. 



VII. 

To do some unique service unto men 
And place myself as one in thine esteem; 
But what then? 



78 A Country Store Window. 

I may be poet, 
Soldier, merchant or philanthropist ; 
How shall I be awakened, then, to know it 

Till thou hast kissed ? 



I dream, I dream 
To do some unique service unto men 
And make its service worthy thine esteem, 

A service, then. 

That shines, a Star 
That hath no occultation 'neath the sod, 
Enveloped in the radiant atmosphere 

Of Love from God. 



VIII. 

If in thy heart 
T do not please thee, show me where I fail ; 
Oh! let some kindly interest tear apart 

The Social Veil 

And point the place 
Where Nature blundered and she shall remould 
That in the light of thine approving face 

In purest gold. 



Confessions. 79 

Nay, touch the place 
That hath not bloomed; thy touch shall start to 

life 
The unquickened Virtue looking to thy face 

To make it rife. 

IX. 

What can I do 
To give Truth breath ? Your doubting gives m.e 

pain. 
The power of believing lies in you, 

Else truth is vain. 

The Light of day 
To many offspring phases now doth move 
And the last, night, still lingers by the way. 

The stars above 

From the milky way 
Burn clear and purify th' unsettled night. 
Now hath the last phase, this dark film of day. 

Bound up the light. 

Hath disappeared 
Shattered by Starlight, by the night wind fanned, 
Settled by the Moon. How clearly dim, how 
weird 

The broad, still land. 



80 A Country Store Window. 

To be near thee, Night, 
Kind and Elder Sister of young Love, 
Thus to be near thee is a still delight, 

For you move 

Ever near 
Your younger sister with deep influence. 
Contentment and calm fancies only here, 

In thy queen presence 

Seem to exist; 
Grow fiercer in the battle of the day ; 
Nymphs turned to Furies flying where they list 

Upon their prey. 

Yes, I have learnt 
To long for Stars that be too far awav. 
Yet winged Hope hath touched the Light and 
burnt 

Into this lay. 



Love, the Unknown. 81 



LOVE, THE UNKNOWN, 

In season, oft we twang heart strings 
And harps with artificial passion 
Till that pettish old Dame Fashion 

Turns our thoughts to other things. 

But passion's Soul can hold his own 
Though Mammon scoff at his conceit 
Who throws himself at Psyche's feet 

Nor bows before a tinsel throne, 

So over the Sea of Love sails Love 
Well balanced in the Winds of Strife, 
That Life is Love and Love is Life, 

That is the thing that I would prove. 

That Sun-warmed winds support and fill 
The Sails of Time with breath of Love. 
This is the thing that I would prove. 

And Love may wander where she will. 



82 A Country Store Window. 

That Sea and Ship and Wind and You 
All breathe life from the Sun of Love, 
This is the thing that I would prove 

For, oh ! I feel it to be true, 

Yet, who of us hath sounded Love. 
To know its deep and shallow parts, 
Or shifting winds of human hearts 

That fill Love's sail and make it move ? 



Society. 83 



SOCIETY. 

I HATE thee well, but let it pass ; 

IVe salve and antidotal sip 
*Gainst her who cuts with blade of grass 

And kisses with a poisoned lip. 



84 A Country Store Window. 



TAYLOR'S GOETHE'S FAUST I 

Did Goethe write "Faust" for the matter? 
Ev'ry tongue should, then, taste. No? What, 

then; for the metre? 
S-o-o — let it remain in the tongue of the latter 
And puzzle the foreign translator. 

There's Taylor, that foolish translator 

Whose verses flow flat while his volume grows 

fatter, 
Trying to follow the form of the metre 
And missing the force of the matter. 

But the atmosphere one should transplant, 
The Rhyme and the grace of the feet. Time 
and Place, 
Gan you transplant these f Go along with your 
cant; 
Ev'ry mind is wrapped in its ozvn grace. 



In the '' Bauble Shop." 85 



TO ONE ACTING IN THE ^BAUBLE SHOP.'' 

A STAR broke through the black of night 

While men slept deep in sighs ; 
It shines there still, a pure white light 

Upon their waking eyes. 

Awake, to feel how good a thing 

Is chivalry! My Star, 
Men do love honor ; you but bring 

A light to show men where they are. 



86 A Country Store Window. 



STANZAS IN THE OLD STYLE. 
I. 

One meets Love in the early fields 

When Nature counts no time; 
What comfort to the Day she yields 

The poet weaves in rhyme; 
To look at Nature fills his heart with scorn 
For those who do not love the early morn. 

II. 

One need not be a poet to express 

Honest admiration ; none the less 

I would Euterpe's rhetoric were mine 

To sing the grace which honors Rhetoric Divine. 

III. 

If I were poet thy bright name 

Would group in every line 
The constellation of a fame 

Where every word would shine. 



Stanzas in the Old Style. 87 

As from the Moon the sunless shadows creep 
So from thy presence thousands of my wishes 
weep. 

IV. 

Nature whispered to me on a day, 
''Scorn pretty words, say what you have to say 
And leave to Truth the cutting of the stone 
Which by reflected light upon the heart is 
thrown." 

V. 

Every minute holds a world of dreams. 

Had we the breadth of knowledge to inclose 

Each thought unconscious in as many themes, 
All men would be word-poets, I suppose ; 

For Nature's in the Soul of every man 

And at the window self she shows whene'er she 
can. 

VI. 

If I should sing to thee a bitter song 

Would'st thou believe the gall a drink for thee? 

Nay, 'tis my fortune that hath done me wrong, 
That hath not filled thy heart with love of me. 



88 A Country Store Window. 



VII. 

Since to describe thy nature gazing out 
With great, calm beauty overlooking all, 

Needs more than Rhetoric, needs that Devout 
Sense of Nature in the hearer's Soul, 

May I not be forgiven for the crime 

Of trusting to the nature of the readers of my 
rhyme ? 

VIII. 

If, then, I can teach men to see thy Nature, 
Sympathy shall make them call you fair 

For in that sympathy their flow of rapture 
Shall bear them to my heart and they shall see 
you there. 



IX. 



Doubt is the air to those white wings of Hope. 

Hope were not Hope did we foresee its fate. 
O, Last of All and Best, though thou didst ope 

Pandora's Box, good luck thou wert too late! 
For though you opened it, you did remain 
To lure back your deserting friends again. 



Stanzas in the Old Style. 89 



To calmly contemplate upon dead facts 

Which can delight your energy no longer; 

Or strain thy hopeful eyes to cherished acts, 
Or dreams of fame — which makes the heart 
beat stronger? 

O, Leaping Love, when those high dreams depart 

Joy bursts and falls in ruins on the heart. 



XI. 



Take it in the cold vault of thy brains, 

O, gray young students, numbed by classic 
winds ; 

Let warm Love leap upon your icy chains 
And kindle fire in your chilly minds. 



XII. 



Not if the Moon should kiss the burning Sun, 
Dear woman, would it startle my belief 

In the dim fixed Star of my fortune 

As much as if I saw thee share my grief. 

I only ask thy grievance for the fate 

That makes one bosom love, the other hate. 



90 A Country Store Window. 



XIIL 

Ah ! Cast this not aside and think me fool. 

Low laughter and word wisdom may prove 
this, 
But look deep down and thou shalt find a Soul 

That loves thee better than a Summer's kiss. 
What more can selfish human nature say 
Than that he loves thee more than his own clay ? 

XIV. 

Difiidence is boldest in true things 

And speaks the heart, perhaps when 'twere 
best not; 
But let it pass, you caught the flash of wings 
Through flooding light — 'twas blinded Hope 
that shot 
Up into Heaven and is lost. The door 
Hath shut, the light shall trouble you no more. 



A Prayer. 91 



A PRAYER. 

Brave men in Christ do welcome woes 

If they would prove their Christian merit. 

Lord, set us in the midst of foes 
But gird us with love's Spirit. 

Yes, there are loves upon this earth 
That to but earthly passions move. 

Grant that th' affections of this world 
May turn us facing toward Thy love. 



92 A Country Store Window. 



THE RHINE, 

O, River, by the hand of Time 

Carved, and seasoned in Old Wine, 
Of thee I sing, O, Ancient Rhine, 

Thou picture in a mouldy frame. 

Thou art too old for one who sings 
Of love in pretty verse of praise; 
Thy venerable name doth raise 

The dust of million thunderings 

Of all-time w^ars upon thy slopes. 
Of charges on thine iron gates, 
Of castles full of bursting fates. 
Of nations straining at great hopes. 

'Tis hard to think of thee as Real ; 
So full of fiction and of truth 
That truth seems fiction, yes, and both 

Are like the dreams v^rhich v^e reveal 



The Rhine. 93 

To bosom friends in hasty rhymes. 

Yet we can touch the proof of strife ; 

A ruined picture of still-life 
To illustrate the olden times. 

Now Poetry may doubt the thing 
Which History will calmly swear to ; 
But her large child eyes do not care to. 

Loving facts which she may sing. 



94 A Country Store Window. 



A PIECE OF SENTIMENT. 

Should a pale and melancholy moon 

Steal o*er the path of a star-peopled sky 

And enter any dreary mood of mine ; 

While through the garden glass-door of the study 

The lamp's seen burning for a Summer's read ; 

Should I then linger in the old oak's shadow 
Musing on a cold hope's dried-up seed? 

What if the seed spring up into a meadow 
Full of the wildest flowers, with a great 

Forlorn desire to give them wings to thee ? 
What could I do? The memory is sweet 

Of having sent them ere I crossed the sea. 



The Woman's Way. 95 



THE WOMAN'S WAY. 

A WOMAN standeth at the gates of Heaven 
And beggeth but a key (she will not knock). 

The Key of Love. O, Man, if this be given, 
Enter thou with her, she has found the lock. 



96 A Country Store Window. 



RUMORS* 

Hearts are not broken till the Truth is known. 
Rumors strike but flashes on the stone, 
Proving the metal and disproving death, 
Creating Hope and building up a faith. 



Summer Dawns. 97 



SUMMER DAWNS. 

*'Let there be light," God said, and lo, the light 
Shattered the black horizons of the night 
And opened the blind pathways of the sky. 
The great Sun rose in new authority. 
Let there be light. A hundred echoes creeped 
Through every crevice of the Earth and leaped 
Around the heavens, making all things seen 
For the first time ; the Sun began to reign, 
And lo, the light came rolling in, in waves, 
Pushing the thick darkness to the caves. 
Now full of it, as though the Spirit of Night, 
Retreating from the penetrating Light, 
Haunted the deep, dark caverns of the Earth 
Whence, Sun-reached, Rivers came, formed where 
there is no mirth! 

Sometimes the morning rushes to the Earth 
With willing gladness in her sunny looks. 
Sometimes she lingers in the angry sky, 
(Not in the humor for a holiday) 
To make the gold wing of the oriole flash 
Like a lone flame athwart the burning sky ; 



98 A Country Store Window. 

To stand still on the hills and sudden dash 
With overbalanced joy into tlie day, 
Or part iier way into some pondering wood 
That, like a hermit, dwells in solitude 
Upon the mountain side. 

Glance on the brooks, 
O, Morning Light, and smile as at your mighty 
birth. 



Aubade. V)9 



AUBADE. 

On morning winds huge night hath flung 
Her heavy wings, to rest on thought; 

Which float away to rising day; 
Dark Spirits, melting into naught. 

But hath night gone? I cannot see 
These things of Nature, great or small, 

Except thou shinest out for me 
To magnify them all. 

Then let this shattered stream, O, Love, 

By Sun's first random shot, 
Dance through thy window pane and move 

Thy beauty to shine out. 



.0; O. 



100 A Country Store Window 



NO REED, THIS. 

If I should love you, 

Think it not strange 
That I should hate you 

Were you to change. 

My ideal, you prove such 

A possible thing 
That — how could I love much 

What's not what I sing? 

One can't feel a little 

What's superlative; 
Life, bent, snaps; so brittle 

You die or you live 

If love bendeth late 
. .To aught other sense 
It snappeth to hate — 
Not indifference. 



No Reed, This. 101 

Hate me to death 

If you care. // you care 
You've but strangled the breath 

Of despair, of despair. 



102 A Country Store Window. 



O, LITTLE CHILD. 

Like rubber your affections! Your desires 

Bound, stretch ; beguiled 
By no world images, no fetish fires, 

But worshipping what's kind to what you like. 
Heaven's nearer you than those who gave you 
life. 

All your belief is in its first vigorous youth, 
Waiting no proof, because you know no doubt 

You're an apostle of a great new truth, 
As though you had been witness of the strife 

Falsehood prepared with such a mighty shout ; 
Had seen Truth conquer ere Falsehood — even 
dared to strike. 



To a Girl. 103 



TO A GIRL SPOILED BY SOCIETY. 

What I give you is, as the air, 

Unseen, unthought of and free; 
All you deign now to give me — the fare 
Of a ball, a perpetual tea. 

I love you ; I know you will take 

My love, when you need it o'ermuch. 

Then I love you for sentiment's sake, 
Till I feel your so delicate touch? 

'Tis possible — Till there's a break 
In your bottle-fly life of a flirt ; 
Then your uppermost spirits will slake — 
And — be drunk by ubiquitous Dirt. 



104 A Country Store Window. 



THE FOREST OF SIN. 

O, Forest of Enchanting Sin 
How have ye trapped Old Age 

And lured the Young Blood deeper in 
And mystified the Sage. 



Within a hollow oak Age stoops, 
Unnerved and blind and weak, 
And with gnarled, fumbling fingers gropes 
Out of his cage to seek 



The field that at the wood's edge lies. 

Lo, where the boughs are torn asunder 
Age peers out with bleared eyes 

And Youth stares in with wonder. 



Brushing by the old man's beard 
Youth trips him by the old man's crutch 

And, rushing in where Wisdom feared, 
Scorns Wisdom as they touch. 



The Forest of Sin. 105 

The Sage stands on a spot ; fine spun, 

Gold-tangled light through branches driven : 
And tries to think the Vv^orld he's in 
Clear open up to heaven. 



106 A Country Store Window. 



FOR AN ALBUM. 

I WOULD I had the art to sing, 

For pen is mightier than the Sword, — 

Or so they say. Should you be bored 

Here's that which vanquishes the tongue, 

Great Golden Silence, which may mean 

Most naturally everything 

Of good that girls have ever been 

And Praise that men have ever sung. 



Soul and Intellect. 107 



SOUL AND INTELLECT. 

Man's intellect doth hold supremest place 
Among all gifts of God. 'Tis mind that makes 
The World man's pleasure ground, and all things 

in it 
Minister to all his needs. The more 
The Matter and the Opportunity 
The deeper is this pleasure and the higher. 
With reason we may then suppose heaven's joy 
One great, eternal feast of Intellect; 
Of wondrous Truths made clear through man's 

own search ; 
Of dainty problems solved in gentle dreams. 
But — where's the Soul? You ask it — heaven 

forgive you. 
'Tis only through perfection of the Soul 
Man's mind can lighten at God's wondrous 

works. 



108 A Country Store Window. 



THE NATURE-CURE. 

Look up, and if perchance some orgie seem 

The apotheosis of all human weakness, 
Unto your detestation, heaven's shame, 

You of the earth, so sick of the earth's sickness, 
Throw in your strength with Nature ; e'en though 

rough 
She's glorious play; you cannot get enough. 
You sigh for that? O, bare your throat again 
As she goes rushing by. Still all in vain ; 
You cannot get enough yet — but you can 
Be weary soon of passions among man. 
Bear thine eyes upward to the holy sky 
And say what see'st thou there? No trace of 

earth 
Hath ever lain across her sanctity 
Or stung her pure complexion with an oath. 



Another Sonnet on Nature. 109 



ANOTHER SONNET ON NATURE. 

There are some things which men call beautiful. 

Which lie about us under human care ; 
They twist and turn to fashion, are as dull 
As artless art and loved as they are rare. 
O, little Man, pleased with each new device 

Of your own hand, look into heaven's dome 
Swelling with beauty ; will not this suffice 

Most ardent eyes a thousand years to come ? 
The saddest things are those of natural beauty ; 

Create the calmest peace in troubled sight; 
Such sorrow soothes and makes delight a duty, 

This joy, then, makes all duty a delight. 
Create fine arts according to their kind 

But make them not the horizon of the mind. 



110 A Country Store Window, 



SONNET. 

O, LITTLE Child of Genius, yet untaught 

Thy father's trade, let me look in thine eyes; 
Do wonders shoot across them, all uncaught 

As Light at first shot through chaotic skies? 
Here can I see, still hushed, those mystic bowers 

Where mind and spirit dally and delay? 
Shall these grow conscious, soon, of some great 
powers 

Which may, ev'n now, between them be at play? 
Art thou, then, of that holy line of Gods, 

Which mystifies the world and laughs at 
Kings ? 
Wilt, thou, too, shatter sceptres with thy rods 

Of laurel, bearing monarchs on thy wings? 
Thy games are all in all to thee, so far; 

Thou art a child as other children are. 



Love, the Known. Ill 



LOVE, THE KNOWN. 

O, Love, once unseen, now given 

To eyes that have longed for thee ; fair 
As one long vision of heaven — 
There, while thou seemest not there; 

IVe found thee sweeter than dreams, 
I've found thee stronger than deeds, 

For thou art the Heart of the World 
And the Soul of that Heart as it bleeds. 



112 A Country Store Window. 



THE TRAITOR'S FLIGHT. 

Rode softly at first. 
Then he broke into a nervous trot. 
Then, suddenly, rode at a furious speed. 
The clapping of hoofs one could hear, coming 
near; 

Far away 

He is fled 

In the dead of the night ; 

Like a shot 

He is freed. 
Ah ! No one guessed in any town 
Who was passing — what renown; 
*Twas when the eye of night closed down. 
'Twas Arnold ; the Traitor ? Well, speak of him 

well, 
(For his nerves were charged at the touch of a 

spell!) 
If you speak at all. Let him speed out of sight, 
He was great — he was cursed. 



Sonnet. 113 



SONNET. 

In the late afternoon just as the Sun 

Begins to soften, ripening the Earth, 
Blending hard glares and shadows into one 

Dark yellow tone, oh ! then thy time 'tis worth 
To gently push through white-head^ fields of 
wheat, 

Just clouded by the Sun so that they hold 
Their heads to heaven, making the air sweet, 

Imparting to the Earth a yellow mould. 
Perchance suggesting winds may blow a grain 

Of thought upon a calm, a world-freed brain. 
Thou hast a fair long evening to unfold 

Thy seed in meditation free from strain; 
Or else thou mayest put it in a form 
Of verse to keep the weary winter warm. 



1 14 A Country Store Window. 



THE LIGHT THAT FAILS NOT. 

The Laborer, Earth, stretched out in sleep, full 
length, 
While heaven stoops gently down with grave 
night smile 
Caressing his rough hair. Oh ! let her wile 
Her vigil o'er his work-anointed strength. 
This is the vision rises at the thought 

Of those who claim no God and prove their 
shame. 
Whence came these rules of harmony ; whence 
came 
The laws of Love? Yes, from a higher Court 
Than such have ever dreamed of ev'n in doubt. 
. At Death, Heaven kisses Earth — and there 

he lies. 
Hast ever seen the Light in dying eyes? 

That is the Light they try to reason out ; 
And sleep and death are kin ; the Light of Dreams 
May be but shadows of Death's Light in gleams. 



Song. 115 



SONG. 

To cast off the old flesh 

(When Love's young days are dead) 
And gaze upon the Soul as fresh 
As Spring's eternal bed! 

When Love's young days are dead, 
What shall we do for pain? 

Lament the things which we have said, 
Or wish them said again? 



1 16 A Country Store Window. 



CHRISTMAS EVE. 

The night is cold and the moon is cold, 
The sky cold, clear, vast, thin; 

And, oh! the warm heart of many a man 
Lies shivering in a sin. 



A woman, wailing on the stair 
For fear of nothing known ; 

A.S a haunted bitch, bewildered witch. 
Bays at the magic moon 



That through yon battered shutter slips 

A finger, long, thin, fresh 
And in a cold passion slowly bends 

To touch a dead man's flesh, 



"Murder, murder ; what have I done ?" 
A man moans in the room ; 

And moans again as in a sv/oon, 
"My murdered man's my doom." 



Christmas Eve. 117 

The finger moves, the rotten door 
Creaks, and the woman stares hi. 

Oh! Awful Conscience, for his face 
Lies staring towards his sin. 



With silent breath she thinks aloud, 
''Thou shalt do no murder." 
Hush, hush! She shuts the door behind; 
''My flesh," — but no man heard her. 



''O, Fountain of all Life, thou first. 
For thou know'st what I need ! 

Beauty of Holiness, I thirst, 
For / have sinned indeed." 



The night's still cold, the moon is cold 
The sky cold, clear, vast, thin; 

But, O, the warm heart of many a man 
Lies shivering in his sin. 



Put out that light. Lo, morn's rays fall 
Dissolving, warm, the night. 

O, Love, the Pure, hath seen it all 
And swept the v/orld with Light. 



118 A Country Store Window. 

Lo, how God, Love, ignoring sin 
Makes sin ashamed. What then? 

That is repentance — Love within 
That sweeps night out of men. 



God, Browning, You and L 119 



GOD, BROWNING, YOU AND L 

At last, at last ! A modern child of God 

Hath called God "Father" ; He hath called him 
"Son" 
By pouring His own Grace upon his head — 

No busy debates upon "The Three in One." 
At last! A poet's mind that we can trust, 

That hath not critic gnawed the Book away 
Nor died at night like moths born of the dust 

That sparkles in the sunbeams of the day. 
Ah ! truly, when we find a man can love 

For love's own sake, we love all things for his. 
Look straight into the firmament above; 

Love is immortal and Love only. This 
The way of my faith; because you are, God is; 

And since I have love, which is God in me, 

I am. Because you are, I am, then God must 
be. 



120 A Country Store Window. 



ONE TOUCH OF LIGHT, ONE TOUCH OF LOVE* 

To-day, Soul, work is best, 

While the Stars lose their control. 

When the Night comes then men rest 
And a Star draws forth the Soul. 



To follow, Soul, a Star; 

To labor after Light, 
Only to find how far you are 

How wrapt in the real night! 



Woe, oh ! woe ; there is 
Enough woe in the world 

Without the black veil of this 
O'er thy fair face unfurled. 



I would the veil were light 
And help to make it long; 

I would all things were right, 
Yet help to make them wrong. 



One Touch of Light. 121 

Oh ! that my Soul would fight 

And conquer and be strong. 
Fool, black will not turn white 

Through singing of a Song! 

Not that I sinned so much 

Since I had seen her face, 
Only — her Spirit's touch 

Laid bare all that was base. 

One touch of Light — dazed Soul 

Back into Body driven ; 
Add but one touch of Love — the whole 

Is drawn up into heaven. 



122 A Country Store Window. 



A KISS. 

A KISS, why that means everything: 

Hope waiting on a charger ; 
The little circumscribing ring 

That makes Soul so much larger ; 
The little breath beneath the wing 

That makes the young bird surer; 
The drop in rose-heart that will fling 

The leaves wide out, maturer; 
The single Star of Evening 

That makes the night light purer; 
The bit o' sweet that makes men sing 

Spite all the world o' sorrow ; 
The honey-bee without the sting 

(But that'll come to-morrow) ; 
The sign that makes a heathen king 

To Christian love aspire ; 
The touch upon an underling 

That bids him go up higher; 
The very Rhinegold that did bring 

The Gods out of Valhalla; 
The little God-stone in the sling 

That made Goliath stnaller ; 



A Kiss. 123 

The little tierce a Picardie 

That in a perfect cadence 
Throws Sunshine in a minor key 

And ends it all in major; 
Or like the shout of victory 

When battle seems to fade hence; 
Or like the crown of misery 

That circles 'round a martyr; 
Or like the light a man shall see 

Upon the face of Nature 
When she hath driven him to flee 

To Athens out of Sparta. 

Two streams meet and where they beat 
Make force and rainbow weather, 

This and all this lies in a kiss — 
For two Souls rush together. 



124 A Country Store Window. 



NINETEENTH CENTURY TENDENCY. 

The Chinese and the Turk. 

Down thunders the Tartar with blundering force 

To fall on a lance of the Sun, 
A ray of light shot through his barbarous 
course — 

Veins where the Spider spun. 

Two feet less for the Universe 

To fumble with and fall ; 
Two things less for man to curse 

On this terrestrial ball. 



Winter Roses to a Singer. 125 



WINTER ROSES TO A SINGER. 

Here is a Summer bloom 

To meet the matchless voice 
That calls it forth from the Winter gloom 

Beneath the snow and ice. 
An Angel shining into a tomb 

Makes dead men to rejoice ; 
Accept these hearts you've brought to bloom 

In your own Paradise. 



126 A Country Store Window. 



THE BORES. 

A MAN I hardly know at all, 
And, of my beautiful, my sister, 

Fawns such fulsome flatt'ries! Call? 
No, no, the beggar shall not visit her, 

A good card wasted — no, Til use 

And mark it "One you must refuse." 

Another I ne'er met before 

Recalls my face but not my name — 
Had seen me with my sister — Bore, 

You shall go back the way you came! 
Fools to each other should be known ; 
''Here's my card." — (It's not my own.) 

These bores were strangers once; the same 
As I to them. They knew no name 
But met each other with a bow — 
Doubtless they know each other now. 



A Swoon 127 



A SWOON AT THE FIRST ^HIFF OF SUMMER^ 

I LONG for the time of the year 

When such love-songs are sung 
As Spring shall press on the frozen ear 

With her soft, warm tongue. 

O, May, my rhyme, my reason. 

Bud blown from the Equinox, 
(In full sweet bloom for the bees), 
Sun, shade of maturer time and season, 
Ripe to the lees, 
'Tis orthodox 

To borrow, beg, or steal. 

Song to whom Songs belong. 
Oh! I'd rather let you feel I feel 

Than sing you song. 

Heigh-ho — what can I take 

That is not already stolen ! 
Kiss from your lips — and dream — and make 
Your lips are stung? Have lost their pollen? 
A fool-dream's song — and wake — and wake? 

Even vours swollen? 



128 A Country Store Window. 



IN AN OLD BOOK BELONGING TO A YOUNG 
GIRL. 

Clover, when dusted on, 
Looks dead and pale; 

So, when it's rained upon 
Looks fresh and hale: 

This old, dead poetry book 
Which you've wept over 

From eyes of heavenly look, 
Breathes fresh as clover. 



Poetria Ventura. 129 



POETRIA VENTURA. 

Th' Olympic Olive, nor the Palm 

Nor Pythian Bay, though I were Greek 

Of Olden Time, have half the charm 
Of thine own eyes and brow and cheek. 

I wist, since Delphic Oracle 

Hath murmured low thy mystic name, 
To utter it would break the spell 

That keeps it mine ; 'twould fly to Fame. 



Let me awhile more guard this treasure ; 

Keep — me know it — me alone, 
Hail (since I must address my measure 

Through one worthy of a crown), 

Hail, Victor, this Olympiad, 

In music, valor, strength and prose! 

In our hearts worthy to be had; 

Most worthy had'st thou been her spouse. 



130 A Country Store Window. 

Hush ; though thus softly have I sung 
Her nameless, even now that part, 

Her name, hath slipped my very tongue. 
With hand on lip ! By Pythian art, 
Hush, lest she slip my very heart. 



Away From the World. 131 



AWAY FROM THE WORLD I MOCK IT. 

Here we have loved and lingered, here have 
lured 

Out of the World a Solitude for two; 
Nay; not a Solitude, but World assured 

Of its own bliss full shared by me and you. 



132 A Country Store Window. 



SHE COMES AND GOES. 

There is a seed within the heart, 

Which men call Soul ; if love 
Shine on it, lo, the seed will part 

And life begin to move. 

O, joy, too great to blow in man 

So richly from the bud, 
Burst through this flesh, sing thyself out 

Before the feet of God. 

She comes, she comes with all Light in her, 
Moonlight, Starlight and the Light of Day, 

Not to eclipse the Night, but make the dark- 
ness thinner 

Through which I see both Heaven and Earth, 
And know God walks that way, 

Above her, 'neath her, in her. 

A little bit of a girl like that 

And I afraid to tell ; 
Why what a thing a Soul must be 

To cast so great a spell. 



She Comes and Goes. 133 

A little honey- jar like that — 

All I see here uncurled^ 
Uncurling, limitless; all that? 

How she goes through the World. 

A little bit of a pearl like that 

All I have here unfurled 
Both head and heart, Soul of one Soul? 

How she must rule the World. 

Ring through the changes of my Song 

You'll find it all pure gold; 
For when I say she's such and such 

She proves me right fourfold. 

That way joy went, that way beauty, 
That way Soul and all Soul's duty; 
That way good went, wrapped in woman. 
That way all Earth sung in heaven; 
L,ife, and what is better yet. 
All good I've known that makes my pulses beat 
With living love Vv^ent that way down the street. 
All wound and bound and sound in one girl — a 
Coquette. 



134 A Country Store Window. 



AN ECHO FROM **PIPPA/' 

But serve God first, then love God ; so 
You'll serve and love each other. 

'All service ranks the same with God," 
And this makes Christ your brother ; 

Love last because it is the end 

Of graded service; first 
Of all equality and that 

Means all best and none worst. 



For an Album. 135 



FOR AN ALBUM. 

You speak and I write my name 
In your roll of honor; and yet 

'Tis better thus to have fame 
That leads you ever in debt, 

Rather than worry yourself with a claim 
Which the World will forget. 



136 A Country Store Window. 



TO A WIFE. 

Music, Poetry, Travel; Thee, my Wife, 

My Star found in the heart of each of them ; 
]\Iy Spirit of Bethesda, stirring Life 

Into the stagnant World; my heart's heart's 
gem; 
The fire of enthusiasm dances 

Like a will-o-the-wisp upon thine ocean eyes 
Filled full of Soul and gentle, mirthful fancies, 

Calm with a trust that breaks not, only sighs 
For surface winds to know that they must be. 

If thou canst trust, then, the impartial sea 
With all thy charms, canst thou, then, not trust 
me? 



Art. 137 



ART. 

, . . . To run after Nature's Form? 

Don't hold her; she will die 
Within your arms. But warm 

Your Soul before her eye, 
She will not think to fly; 

You hold her with reflected charm. 
Touch her? You put out her eye 

And, when your Soul's no longer warm, 
Her image in your eye grows cold, 

A stiflf, dead Memory. 
O, do not hold. 



138 A Country Store Window. 



WHATEVER YOUR MOOD SAYS. 

O, BiRD^ I see thy throat 

Bulge with a melody; 
Quick empty every note 

Ere it turn back to die. 



What is it makes one pant 
To hear thy song, sweet bird? 

If it is Love, thy chant 
Will soon be heard. 



'Tis over. O, sweet bird, 

How my heart aches ; 
This song had ne'er been heard 

Else, for it slakes 



Love's burning pain — or feeds it; 

I care not which, for Love 
Is a sorrow that we love, that we'd sit 

Long with ere we move. 



Whatever Your Mood Says. 139 

How quick our pleasures die, 

While Sorrow lingers long; 
They go out in a sigh, 
But Sorrow bears a song. 

Joy is but blind sorrow 

Flickering with Star eyes 
That die into the morrow. 

Now wilt thou arise 

Thou Spirit of Joy, thou Sorrow, 

Welcome as the Day. 
Teach me thy plans o' Morrow 

For thou art come to stay. 



140 A Country Store Window. 



MY WORLD. 

Your life is the World I live in ; out 
Of that would be — not death, 

But worse than death, half-life that fears 
To eke out the half breath. 

Out of that would be out of the World; 

Things unproportioned seem. 
As to one living in the moon 

Or dying in a dream. 



Two Poets. 141 



TWO POETS. 

That's he ; Love, Crime and Drinking Bout, 
Death, Roses; faultless were he greater; 
Mesmerizes with a web 
Of word's and dance of Satyr. 

This follows close the flow and ebb 
Of Life ; a buoy for faith is doubt; 
Oh ! I prefer man's heart to shout 
Of Prestidigitator. 



142 A Country Store Window. 



AN OBSERVATION. 

The upper lid at the under lid 

Kept pecking timidly 
As wild birds flutter at the snow 

And back to heaven fly. 

Through this rainy lash and that 

Her glances slyly crept 
As though to see if any one 

Guessed that she really — wept; 
Yet all the time her tears fell through 
Like showers from the Sun. 
She looked so foolish — an she did 
I loved her for it, too. 



Ode to Wagner. 143 



ODE TO WAGNER. 

How man-making is it to feel the warm 

Pulse o' the world a-throbbing in your breast. 
With your own heart's pulsations ; peace and 
storm 
With your heart's ragings and with your heart's 
rest. 



O, that I could but draw that Music in 
As one draws in a Soul by kissing it. 

What can man do but hear it? None hath seen 
Or touched it though it nerves the touch and 
sight 



To form and color they can never reach ; 
But ever following, the Soul grows rife 
To greater visions, mind to surer touch 
With heavenly things. So much 
Can music teach; 
Herself the will-o'-the-wisp that draws the 
essence out of Life. 



144 A Country Store Window. 

Hail, blustering God that shapest the wind 
Out of thy mind ; 
Who call'st with a shout 
From the deep sea out 
A dead, a monstrous Silence rising most 
Like a distant Mountain through a blinding 

storm, 
A strange, huge animal with a velvet skin ; 
Or like a deep, dead Soul which some foul 

fiend hath caught. 
In Silence the naked Soul stands stripped of 

uttered thought. 
And we hear the echo of a storm 
A-stealing through the silence like a ghost 
Through empty halls where some carousing 
scene hath been. 

Hail, blustering God that shapest the wind 
Out of thy mind ; 
Who, out of thine eyes, 
Showeth Sun-sprinkled Stars 
And cleareth the skies 
Of thundering clouds and elemental wars, 
And makest sparkling Peace to reign in Paradise. 



A Model Birthday Ode. 145 



A MODEL BIRTHDAY ODE. 

Dear Sophie, or Carrie (whatever the name), 
Here's a bracelet (with many returns of the 

same). 
I've turned Bard, and write verse to make sure 

that you know it, 
Though it's hard (but not worse than the cure, 

rotten eggs) 
To feel the sham hobby you're riding go lame 
And yet be uncertain whose rickety pegs 
Shake under the skirt — your own two, or four 

legs. 

Whip Peg in a go-cart, and, as I'm a poet, 
She'll lose caste — and character, kicking to show 
it. 

My wish is a toast ; ah ! more hearty, I wist 
Than the ringing frail glasses, this (w) ringing 

your wrist. 
Though only in symbol. Hear ! this is my toast ; 
May it more than o'erbalance the weight of my 

boast : 



146 A Country Store Window. 

All our amenities good and as pleasant 
Be as the one we are passing at present ; 
That, when you come to weigh fully this line, 
Your wishes may be th' exact balance of mine. 

Upon this day of Grand Jubal 

(To solve now something tangible; 

Impertinent in only one sense, 

Which sense, without lamp of Bunsen's, 

A mole may see in this mine o' nonsense), 

Plain as any old Jew R, 

Tell me — just how old you are. 

As narrow, I, as Charles D Anjou ! 

Are you, then, Ghibelline or Guelph? 
What matters it since you are you. 

Just old enough to be yourself. 

And yet I ask, to tell the truth, 

(You will not answer) only that 
I, when I speak of perfect youth, 

May know what age to place it at. 

Have a good time in this bud-time, 

Nipt enough to make you reason 
Out your pleasure measure by measure 

And put some back to use next season. 



A Model Birthday Ode. 147 

May that sand in the hour glass, 

Turned upside down once and again 

To make another hour pass, 
Just as fresh each time remain; 

And that between the Syzygies 
Of one short season you'll not think 

(As some girls do) that pleasure physic is 
To be gulped down and not to drink. 

To guard against this learn what Music is. 

But — if your pleasures then wane too soon 
(Through events beyond control) 

After full Moon there's a New Moon 
Waxing to another full. 

If I were an old man, mark you, 
I might speak of "life to-morrow," 

But I know of pleasure only, 

Half this life — the other's sorrow. 

No one is — (I must not fear it) — 
You are not to young to hear it ; 

Though old Wisdom croak above you 
Like a metamorphosed Spirit 

Cankered to a Crow — I love you! 



148 A Country Store Window. 



THE FLOWER THAT YOU SWEAR BY. 

I CAN pick it in the garden 

Or buy it at the fair 
For a song or ha'penny farden 

To stick it in your hair, 
And it's red or pink or white or mottled. Thereby 
Hangs a Song to hum you : 

(But enough to buy that flower, 
So ye may judge its power) 

All colors do become you. 
Sing O, the little flower that you swear by. 

Now, I see it in your hair 

But I dare not pick it thence 
For I fear, who put there, 

That this or that will give offence. 
It takes the color of your mood and thereby 
Anything you choose to make it. 

(So, I swear it hath all power, 
O, the mighty little flower 

When I may, but dare not take it!) 
O, that little flower that you swear by. 



Says One Lover to Another. 149 



SAYS ONE LOVER TO ANOTHER. 

For God's sake, don't lose heart, man, 
If your girl prove a curse. 

My girl will take your part, mau, 
(Or else prove ten times worse). 



150 A Country Store Window. 



A PIECE OF MORALIZING. 

Ah ! well, for us it is hard 

To be good. To be good is to fight. 
And war maintains a close guard 
In the subtle peace of night, 

When the foe looks like a star 

To your star-gazing sight, 
And you move — stand where you are 

For that star gives no light. 



A Tale. 151 



A TALE. 

There was a little girl 
With such a common name 

That when she met an Earl 
A countess she became. 



But 'twas a title which 
She purposely disclaimed 

Because her mastiff bitch 
Was similarly named. 



So the Earl arose, like Fate, 
And called her in his heat 

A name — appropriate — 
Which I cannot repeat. 



But Pride, not satisfied 

With this, the Earl's rebuke, 

Soon left her husband's side 
To dote upon a Duke. 



152 A Country Store Window. 

Such are the weighty things 
Lead reasoning man to fall ! 

She fell in love with Kings 
And — left no name at all. 

Except this great Pen Name 
Which spread her shame abroad- 

For ere she came to — Fame (?) 
Her writings were ignored. 

And even so doth man 

Attain to his desire; 
Out of the frying pan 

He falls into the fire. 



Eyes of Hers. 153 



EYES OF HERS. 

Each blue eye was a morning flower, 

Say a hare-bell, 

Morning-glory, 
With a winking ciewdrop in it, 
Full of dawn as her Soul of power, 

Every minute 
Showing light and purer sight. 

A story, 
Though it seemeth like a fable, 

True as Gospel. 



154 A Country Store Window. 



APOSTROPHE TO A VIOLIN. 

There stands she blushing Hke a warm sky in 
June 
But stormy-eyed, as though my Truth were in 
it 
Through like a whirlwind. Whisper me some 
tune, 
O, Fiddle, for her heart's ease. So begin it: 

"Hast ever seen a wild rose of a Summer 

Flush at a storm that blows her hair about her ? 

O, truly, sky, though such wrath doth become her. 
Truth within her is more than storm without 
her." 

Come, gentle Spirit of the mighty wild-wood, 
Come, blow the angry storm of her eyes afar; 

Make my sky trusted as the blue of childhood. 
Serious-eyed — lit with a laughing star. 



A Change 155 



A CHANGE. 

Out of a Sea of Faces 

I've picked my one pure pearl, 
Whose heart's as true as the sea's deep places 

Where's no whip or whirl. 
In her face a sky that traces 

That of Heaven for all men's graces. 
Mark 4he change, when all the phases 

Shine in one pure pearl ; 
My Sea, my Earth, my Sky run races 
Deep in the eyes of one girl. 



156 A Country Store Window. 



WORLD SORROW. 

What's World Sorrow? Underneath 

White snow-green Summer stores a-thriving. 

Though she hankers after death 

Knows warm Life's still worth the living. 

What's World Sorrow ? Cheek by cheek 
Summer stream, 'neath frozen Winter. 

If only now the ice would break 

I'd show you quickly, for love's sake, 

That stream with Sun poured in to tint her. 

Once lived Life would be no more worth, 

Were it only worth the living; 
Just for sake of Summer birth 

Through long Winters men keep striving. 
Oh! A will to break and a Love to thaw, 
Else Life's worth living — and no more. 



Major and Minor. 157 



MAJOR AND MINOR. 

Is it more natural for a man to smile 
Than dip himself in morbid melancholy? 

I think the Soul, remaining without guile, 
Sings naked Major songs right through man's 
folly. 

Once Nature was in Major time and tune 
Till Satan, singing flat, first taught her minor ; 

So men sing flat and sharp — too late, too soon. 
And only the shudder at discord tests man's 
ear the finer. 

A minor mode doth drape my Soul in cobwebs; 

Come, major breeze, and brush 'em all away. 
Thus am I played upon by other's natures 

Which change, being played upon, from grave 
to gay. 

No one Soul faith-fixed, major mode or minor, 
But all the world flies fugues from God's 
Sound, prime 

In Nature. Every man's his brother singer 
But the best singer — out of tune and time. 



158 A Country Store Window. 



«DE TE FABULA*'— TAMMANY. 

Cetawayo's sceptred with a cane 
And crowned with a silk hat; 

He thinks himself a gentleman, 
But is he— for all that? 



Art. 159 



ART. 

Is Art, think you, a wanton breeze 
To tickle with finger tip 

Beneath a nervous pleasure sail 
To make her rise and dip? 



Is she Aurora at the close 
Of some dark night in June, 

To touch the bosom of a rose 
And make it live till noon? 



Is she Aurora tripping it 

Down some white cloudy summit, 
Dipping her fingers dewy wet 

Into a rose to bloom it? 



Ay, is she this ! But more than this, 

A master-spirit moulder ; 
To make dust-Souls climb for a kiss 

And, kissing, make them bolder. 



160 A Country Store Window. 



THE LOST ART. 

Whatever pleasure I have had to give 
By touch of skill on bow and fiddle strings 

Hath vanished, for like water through a sieve, 
Skill's slipped my touch; there's not one tone 
that clings. 

And so what pleasure I have ever lent 

Through touch of heart on bow and fiddle 
strings 
Seeks cover — though like a wounded bird still 
sings 
Deep down in the bosom of my instrument. 



The Eternal Battle. 161 



THE ETERNAL BATTLE 

As though a gust of wind should sudden rise 
And strike out even courage from the dark. 
Oh! that 'twere possible for human eyes 
By searching sorrow to light upon its living 
spark ! 

Oh ! that 'twere possible one blow could crush 
All Devils — to rise not where once they fell ; 
With one grand swoop to raise a holy hush 
A-trembling in the Soul cracked v«rith the cries of 
hell. 

Get thee behind me, Satan ; get thee down 

Under my feet, as Michael had thee first ; 
Ev'n then, ah ! thou could'st whine back to thine 
own, 
Uprise again in fear to smite where'er thou 
durst. 



162 A Country Store Window. 



MY MISTRESS ART. 

Let fools be reckoned wise ; let wise men be their 
fools ; 
Still am I reckoned nothing. God be praised, 
For 'scaping thus the measure of men's rules ! 
At the dear feet of Art I sit; when she hath 
raised 
My Soul on knees, alone she smiles; when art 
love cools 
My mistress Art and I alone will stand amazed. 



An Allegory. 163 



AN ALLEGORY. 

Dedicated with eleemosynary reverence to Dr, 
Pontifex Maximus and Sir Arbiter Ele- 
gantiarium, of the Unabridged Lexicographic 
Lyceum of Poetic Culture. 



Said the Schoolmaster, scowling on the verse : 

"Han, you fool, think you have hit the Truth? 
They're pleasing lines and clever; but they're 
worse 
Than useless, worse than noxious, for, in 
sooth. 



"Poverty's no 'shame,' save as misfortune 
That brings thee nearer to that naked state 

Of body and Soul that shrinks from test of Sun- 
light, 
Hides in dark places, rotting, full of hate. 



164 A Country Store Window. 

"Write no more verse ; think not to hit the Truth 
At random. Here's a story that will cure 
you :" 
Whereat one whispered 'Tedant !" Shame, poor 

youth, 
. For patience is no pedant, I assure you. 



'There is a Wood, mysterious, situate 

Where heaven may be, where hell is, almost 
certain ; 
At any rate, I mean the Earth incarnate 

Where flesh and world, both good and bad, are 
caught in; 

"Whether 'tis heaven or hell or both or neither. 

Well, in this Wood was not a single tree 
Bore bud or leaf or any kind of weather; 

Nor bud, nor bough nor leaf could you, Sir, 
see; 

"And those who lived there, rainy days and 
sunny, 
They could not even see a single trunk 
(Nor double either — lest you should be funny 
And think I mean to say that they were — 
drunk ; 



An Allegory. 165 

''Unless it were with beer of native brewing, 
The vanity of fools that would be wise). 

No, they were poets, poetry eschewing — 

More, they were blind, because they had no 
eyes; 

'Though I assure you, Han, it is a pity. 
For they will follow all the powers that be, 

A hundred things at once. Oh ! they turn giddy. 
Seesawing after what they think they see, 

"Their eyes turned inward gazing on the worms 
Of rhyme and metre that eat up their brains ; 

Smiling and throwing kisses at mere forms. 
And making March a Sunny Month (it rains 

'Tn March; March always holds to his gray 
colors) — 

No matter, though 'tis false, 'tis no disgrace ! 
What harm, if on this side they try to gull us, 

While they go jigging in vain ecstatic grace ? ! ! 

"And now you have the main points of my story ; 
A Wood whose trees are leafless, boughless, 
budless — 
Just here, I warn you, there's an Allegory; 
For though the trees seem dead they are not 
bloodless. 



166 A Country Store Window. 

''These woods, you know, are full of men of 
knowledge, 
Blind, like Homer (but not of Homer's kind) ; 
In digging trifles busy as a College, 

Seeing but what they choose to call their 
'mind.' 



**Above their heads hold fancy bows and arrows 
Shooting North, East, South, West, but not 
one glance, 

Not hitting even a flock of deceased sparrows, 
Much less the trees they hope to hit by chance. 



"Now where these arrows fly's a problem which 
Political Economy hath blasted" — 

(To interrupt just here how Han did itch, 
For 'arrows flies'— bad grammar; but de- 
sisted) — 

"Literally damned, nor feather stitch 

Nor distich of them can be found, just wasted." 



"I think you asked me, did you not, what good 
Lies in a tree that they should all so go on; 

One arrow hitting it will make it bud 

Like Magic ; two will make it leaf and so on.'* 



An Allegory. 167 

Oh! the World 

Is replete 
With their kind. 

With their feet 
They make noise 
In the poise 

Of retreat 
From the Wind, 

From the Heat, 
From the Snows. 
They are those 
Who pretend 

To be much; 
God defend 

Us from such, 
For their end 

Is the same 
As the place 

Whence they came. 
Back to race, 

Their own kind, 
Into space 

They are whirled 
By the rush 

Of the wind. 
By the blush 

Of the rose, 
By the hush 

Of the snows. 



168 A Country Store Window. 

*'Blow, ye dull Winds, hushed in the Solemn 
Wood; 
Sound through the horn of Plenty, as ye can, 
Sound one, long, true note that should make it 
bud. 
This barren horn ; hail ye the coming man 



**Who bendeth 'neath the boughs that spread 
above him 
At the true touch of Love ; a tangled luxury 
Of boughs, of buds, of flowers — all things that 
love him; 
Great brown, brawny boughs that hide their 
strength 

Beneath the flourish 
Of little green leaves a-bustle with victory, 
Drunk with the incense of love-laden flowers 

Which, too, nourish 
With full white breasts the sucking bees ; 
Vines and fruit trees 

By the Sun and sweet showers 
Nourished; all these 

Pressing from far and near, 
Pouring into his ear 
With myriad tongue the hum of Victory." 



An Allegory. 169 

It grew dusk and so still 

You could hear the snow drift 

Round the window sill, 
And the shrill wind lift 

With the silence of theft 
The school-door latch. 
You could hear a slate scratch 

Near the desk of the sloth 
With his mouth full of citron. 
One eye in a patch 

Of dirty white cloth. 
It was dark in the hall; 
You could hear a foot-fall 
And the scrape of a match 
On the whitewashed wall 
By the maid, not the matron. 

"Indeed, Sir; why are you so angry, for 
I did my best ; I wish I could do more." 
Then answered the Schoolmaster kindly: "Han, 
If you grow up to be an honest man, 
You'll be a great one." 



170 A Country Store Window. 



INNOCENCE. 

Like butterflies a-lighting, 

Her white wings kiss and part 

For fear a bee is there beating 
To sting her to the heart. 

Like two blue stars a-glowing 

As dark night closes in 
Her bright eyes shine, a-growing 

At the sight of sin. 

Like two red streaks o' dawn 
As white day advanceth, 

Her lips in wonder burn 
Apart and show her teeth. 

Oh ! feels that not like scorn 
That mounteth in her breath? 

Like Venus' Doves a-fluttering 
Her clasped hands kiss and part. 

Beneath, hear'st thou a muttering 
Like the beating of a heart? 



Song. 171 



SONG. 

O, Light o' Love, 'tis you, 'tis you 
Are Light o' Life ; what merely flesh 

At seeing Sorrow dare look through 
Ahd die not at the wish ? 

O, Light o' Love, what earth can die 

While thou art in the eyes ? 
Tremble he may and faint and sigh, 

But Spirit never dies. 

O, Love-Light, Spark struck Soul from Soul 
Drift heavenward, be still and shine 

Fixed there, the Star that doth control 
Her life as it doth mine. 



172 A Country Store Window, 



THE FAR-AWAYS. 

O, FOR the far-away, the country; 

O, for the free air from the seas, 
Cloud-stirred to a ripple along the green shore 

With the warm sunlight in the breeze. 

Rustling down into the green grass, 
Turning each blade from light to shade. 

With the flash of a little, dimpled low laugh 
Sparkling on from blade to blade. 

O, for the ever faithful. Freedom ; 

O, for the strong breeze from the sea ; 
And, O, for the all-sufficient "FORTUNE" 

Floating in for you and me. 



France. 173 



FRANCE. 



September p, i8pp. 

I SING of men who scarcely yet are men, 

Traitors in arms who scratch the Mother's 
breast ; 

The kind men should have drowned forever when 
First they were littered — drowned in sober jest. 



Ev'n though one bad knows Goodness to be blest 
Still doth he turn her bust behind the shelf ; 

He shrinks from the honest torture of her test, 
Fearing lest he should find — one "nobler" than 
himself. 



He will admit no Virtue as his guest 

While Justice searches from that gazing bust ; 

Refusing Mirth better than his best 

He makes himself the Judge of all that's just. 



174 A Country Store Window. 

France, thou hast compassed two great crimes of 
daring, 
Bound Justice — found Truth guilty of a lie ; 
Thy naked Soul, while all the v/orld stand star- 
ing, 
Supposeth herself clothed in Majesty ! 



Once to bind Truth were crime enough, God 
knows ; 
But twice? To convict themselves of things 
ill-famed 
Most barren, for thence no Repentance grows — 
Salt sown o'er rains of a Temple shamed. 



France, France, thou sleep'st! Is all the world 
a fool 

That says thou sleepest in Fool's Paradise? 
Awake, beat off the Dogs that rend thy Rule 

Into their self-indulgent Sacrifice. 



Jonaust, Mercier, of the General Staff, 
Immortal Names — to be forever cursed! 

By-words for a People when they laugh; 
Anathemas for Mobs when they would do their 
worst. 



France. ^ 175 

Masters, you have performed your "Duty" well — 
No other where could you have done it so; 

Law-breakers and Road-makers to all Hell 
O'er France now quivering 'neath your coward 
blow. 

Crime black enough, that, after it, so still 

Life seems suspended for the Crack of Heaven, 

Fearing to breathe — lest God look down and kill 
Ere man finds breath enough to pray to be for- 
given. 

What is a nation without honor? — None; 

For who salutes that flag, torn not in strife 
But mangled. Dervish like, for its own fun. 

Cursing, praying — ^taking its own life. 

A sight too hideous for heart to see 

And not weep blood ! Once France was that 
broad field 
Where Power and Honor met in Majesty 

Beneath the unfolding Lilies of her Shield. 

But onward the Nations move with solemn tread 
Towards an Ideal they know not, only feel ; 

They pause to bury France, for she is dead. 
They pass on — crush the new grave under heeL 



176 A Country Store Window. 

Pitied — the foolish boast of Leadership; 

Forgiven — for the weakness of her will ; 
P'orgotten — the proud curling of her lip ; 

Remembered — the Promise she could not ful- 
fill. 

Oh! Where could such a Mother, racked by 
storms, 
Those true-hearts that are hers find grace to 
nurture ; 
Or else — whence came these microscopic worms 
Set in some minds to putrify their nature ! 



Gamblers for Power and any sort of Fame, 
Draw in your luck — youVe lost the Larger 
Chance ; 

Go wallow in the ''Glory" of your game, 
Dice-throwers in the piteous face of France ! 

Despair above Confusion — the cleft tongues 
Of Every Passion — Serpents torn asunder 

Flames writhing out of Babel's topmost rungs 
Stretching their necks to hiss at Heaven's 
thunder 

Or kiss his lightning ; lo, the Thing you fear ! 

The ruin of a Hope that might have stood 
Had not your stiff-necks thought alone to clear 

The chaos lying between you and God. 



France. 177 

O, wizened children of Incompetence, 

Why hang upon the curdled breasts of Chance 

To shrivel like your foster-mother! Hence 
Deceive yourselves with poisoned sustenance 

No more, but rather wean yourselves and grow 

Strong by the sweet sweat of a manly brow. 

Bear with the sermons of the World ; they preach 
That Patience ever yet by Hope grew strong. 

Alas, for France, who hath no time to reach 
A Goal ere Hope and Patience limp along. 

And is there nothing left to do for France 

Now that, in vain, the last zuord has been said ? 

No more Laboris, Picards there, perchance? 
Such men could raise her, even from the dead. 

If there are laws that do condemn the Just, 
Such are the laws to set the Devil free 

That he may pardon Honor, for Craft must 
Seem honest and convince his enemy. 

Yes, Craft, to kiss his foe, must seem to be 
In all parts like his enemy — but Truth, 

She cannot stoop to kiss the enemy, 

For whom her lips caress they kiss in very 
sooth. 



178 A Country Store Window. 

All Nations, brooding o'er the French eye-beam, 
Raise one long note of horror at the News ! 

As one would wake to find Truth all a Dream 
And the whole plan of Heaven, Hell's most 
subtle ruse. 

The first Act — Tragedy; and then a rain 
Of self-applause that dimmed the Stars at first. 

But Justice called for that first Act again, 
So the second was the lining through the same 
cloud burst. 

How thinketh France to cut the Gordian knot? 

In Farce alone is there conceit so quaint ! 
For, loving the sly Sinner of the plot, 

She scalds his tender conscience by ''pardon- 
ing" the Saint ! 

Justice Retributive on him will fall 

Who hopes to steer a planet from her course: 
Behold Truth (this most tragical of all !) 

Insulted with a "Pardon" — this last Act a 
Farce. 

The curtain falls to merry drum and fife, 
No shadow of Host to reckon with ; jio Host 

In Farce — but there is Justice in real life 

That overshadows crime and haunts it like a 
ghost. 



France. 179 

Thence grow the facts all good men love to see : 
No shame to haunt his freedom, doubly sweet, 

The Just Man, persecuted, now set free. 

Returns to his heart's home and fills the empty- 
seat. 

Contempt is all the care the Nations give 
Wherever the French Lilies are unfurled ; 

Out of their native soil they cannot live. 

While he who droops in France is honored by 
the world. 



180 A Country Store Window. 



A FAIR EXCHANGE. 

What o' the World, Love^ 

If it be full of sorrow? 
The World's pain and our pain move 

As yesterday from to-morrow. 

Tell me (how doubt grows!) 
That your pain is as my pain, 

(Close, dear, I'll hug you close) 
So mine to joy will ripen. 

Bury our pains where 

They'll flourish ; mine in your heart 
And in mine, yours; we'll bear 

No pain, but joy — for my part; 

But what o' yourself, else ? 

I'm back in the World again, 
— If you say that I say false, — 

The World and the World's pain. 



A Keynote. 181 



A KEYNOTE. 

Heart-bursting thoughts that labor 
And die for the wings of the word, 
Lie buried, then, close at the heart roots.. 
Will you rise? From the heart 
Of one whose Art 
Sings her to hear those songs that are not heard. 



182 A Country Store Window, 



MADAM, 

Madam^ think you to touch my heart 

And see it fall open, burst 
Like a plump bud? Pray, learn your part 

Better and do your worst. 

Over my heart I raise my hand — 

It is a sacred thing, 
Once did she condescend to stand 

Here, in my heart. Take wing, 

Madam ; no sentimental grace 

This attitude. My heart 
She made the stronghold of one face 

Go elsewhere with your art. 

Leave me my treasure. What, you laugh? 

Why, so do I. You shell 
With wondrous ease wheat from the chaff, 

Madam, bid you farwell. 



Mary. 183 



MARY. 

Mary, to thy glorious eyes 

My heart leaps out through mine; 
But there it falls, alas, and lies 

Unclaimed — though it is thine. 
Nor do I wish you to discover 

How it aches with pride 
And pity it; but, as a lover 

Leaps to suicide 

So leaps my whole soul out to thee. 
Dear girl; nor have I lost 

My life if you in death, Mary, 
Can say "I love thee most." 



184 A Country Store Window. 



ALONG WITH ^'LANDOR'S POEMS/^ 

Old Pindar sang into our ears 

That myth of Arethusa 
Until (between real hopes and fears) 

All men began t' abuse her. 



Alpheus gazed up through the stream 
And saw a sea-nymph bathing there. 

She fled. He leaped out of the dream 
And followed. But she prayed a prayer 



To Dian and forthwith became 

A fountain quicker than the river 

Alpheus. Arethuse her name — 

She kept her name, but not forever 



Once, I looked through my heart and saw 
Some one therein who could not see me 

Till I leaped out upon the shore, 
Ashamed to sit so, still and dreamy. 



Along with "Lander's Poems." 185 

Though Gods may offer Arethuse 

Their lives, yet they themselves may hinder. 

Not Brooks (because you will refuse). 
Give I — but Books that out-sing Pindar. 



186 A Country Store Window. 



WRITTEN IN THE SAME. 

Oh ! how hard it is to tell 
The Spirit from the letter. 

A verse or two is very well, 

But (think you?) none were better. 

O, just one more before he claims, 
This Landor, his best reader. 

A schoolboy, clumsy at his games. 
Is doubly so a pleader. 

But, to say truth, I do not give 
To show my thought of thee; 

To remind you, only, that I live — 
To make you think of me. 

Let not this *'Landor" lead thee on 

So to forget the giver — 

First, foolish boy, 

Get her to say 

With scornful joy 

And pout — eye play; 

"As though the shadozv of the swan 

Could lead it from the river." 



The Outcast. 187 



THE OUTCAST. 

My playmate Earth shrinks from me while 
The years glide by since I was small; 

Then was I nearer Nature's smile 

Now am I tall as man and high enough to fall 

Not even lightly, but with vengeance hurled. 

Though Earth is far, yet neither star 

Nor sky come nearer me. 
But show themselves like what they are, 
Those other worlds away, not what they used 
to be 
Near lights of heaven that crown the under 
world. 



188 A Country Store Window. 



SONG. 

Oh ! to guess moods, whence they come, 
While others see things as they seem ; 
To know the true meaning of much — but of soul 
To know the true meaning of much — but of some 
For the sake of the wake from the dream — 
To fxnd it true. 

Oh! to be loved as I love, 

By one whom I love ; anyone, 
No matter who if she only prove 
In her own sweet way my kind of love 

With the whole of it known — to none — 
Save me and you. 



The Bather. 189 



THE BATHER. 

She is about twenty, or less, as I guessed 
By the white shape of the nape of her neck, 

When she tumbled her hair in a curly brown crest 
And shook it out over her eyes and her cheek. 

There it waved like a shadow deep in a clear pool 
Just stirred by the breath of the moon, and her 
cheek 
Shone through like a pebble, smooth, pure, white 
and cool. 
As she looked up and smiled and then threw 
her hair back. 

Yes, she smiled as I saw her, yet straight as a 
Sun-flash 
Stood she and trembled; had spoken, but 
vainly. 
Doubting my love for her. Oh ! the undone sash 
Of blue at her waist; her eyes spoke her too 
plainly. 



190 A Country Store Window. 



HER ANSWER. 

His love was full ; ay, over the brim. 
She spoke a name ; his lips closed o'er 
The whispered oath. *'I hate him more 
Than I love you." Ah! did she hear? 

(Pause.) 

"And shall I tell you why?" sighs she. 

(Pause.) 

"Divided is your love for me; 

One half is love of self, I fear, 
' But all your hate is hate of him." 



Reciprocal— A Sketch. 191 



RECIPROCAL— A SKETCH* 

Sniff the brand new cold o' coming winter ; 

See a warm, rich room of lazy wealth ; 
A bachelor apartment and a dinner 

Spread for ''boon friends," poor, idle, gay, in 
splendid health. 



There they sit, a company of six. 

Not one of whom can call his host a friend. 
Chop licking fire crackles up the bricks 

But cold are the hearths at home of those who 
help him spend. 



They plucked the absent, left not one bright 
feather, 
Until the wine grew hot within their eyes 
And kindled words. This was the host's warm 
weather 
Where basked his melancholy: "Yes, they are 
all lies. 



192 A Country Store Window. 

"But talk on; 'tis amusing." Pushed the wine 

Toward a big, unbottled, boisterous bird ; 
'You drink too much; 'tis no affair of mine. 
Come, let us drink and wink to — you know ; 
mumm's the word." 



The purple veins o' Winter 
Expand and burst their flood 

Into the warm, wide veins of Summer 
And turn to young, red blood. 



She stood upon the garden bench in the morn- 
ing, 
Picking cherries from a gummy tree 
That bore them richly. That was early mormng ; 
Fruit of Earth just touched by Sun and Bird 
and Bee. 



The caterpillar cooled his furry coat 
Upon a round, red apple, unmolested. 

A butterfly sailed in his lordly boat 

The air, while jealous whirr from cherry tree 
protested. 



Reciprocal — A Sketch. 193 

And there were two large cherries with joined 
stems ; 
Each had a deep white scratch upon his cheek. 
"Alas !" cried she, with petulance, ''these gems 1 
But, then, they must be sweet to tempt so black 
a beak." 

"This thin red one is Jack ; the scratch half healed 

Already. This too rich one, this is Fred. 
They've gone to help each other in the field. 
I'll make Fred eat the light, and Jack the dark 
rich red." 

"I said — well, no, I didn't say, 'don't fete 

Your moods; be men, go work,' as mistress 
sends 
Slaves to the field ; but one can intimate. 

I made them work, and work has made them 
bosom friends." 



194 A Country Store XX'^indow. 



SONG. 

Oh ! horror to look back and see 
The day just dead, lie yet so near; 

That last year's youth has gone from me 
And I grow older by a year. 

Oh ! not much longer will it taKe 
To teach me all a man should know 

Who peers back into youth; to make 
Youth seem a thousand years ago. 



Paderewski. 195 



PADEREWSKI. 

O, Mind, kept full of careful thought, 

Like fruit ripe on the trees, 
Ready at sunset to be caught 

Or fall with perfect ease, 

If thou cculd'st fill me, hushed would be Art 
motive ; 

Nor should I stir within myself at times ; 
Nor would a hungry Soul then feed itself 

With unripe tones and overripened rhymes. 



Like a melting mountain 
'Neath a Sunset touch 

Come thy notes; a fountain 
Where there was none such. 



If thou could'st run in me forever 

I could resign m.y will, 
(Washed free of self-enshrined endeavor) 

For Art's sake and be still. 



196 A Country Store Window. 

Down comes a storm cloud 
Through vale from high hill 

With a strong, sweeping victory, 
While the wind whistles shrill. 

Could'st thou brew such a storm 

In every stormy mood. 
Would men taste the cold worm 

Turned out of Earth, for food? 

The sky pales, 

A gold thread 
Of Sun sails 

Overhead. 

A cloud drifts 

From the west; 
The Sun lifts 

His gold crest. 

Then is it a Star, 

Cloud cleared by the Wind? 
What? One must sail far, 

Far away with his mind. 



Virginia. 197 



VIRGINIA. 

I. 

O, RICH Wind of October, 

What a pure draught ye outpour ! 
What lover can be sober 

Who comes up from yon shore 
While the gala leaves go whirling 'round his 
feet? 



October, oh ! October, 

How ye set my heart ablaze ! 
What lover can be sober 

And not shout his mistress' praise 
As thy color mantleth higher in him and the 
cheek that he would greet? 



Oh ! that my song could honor 
That Autumn face of thine, 

And kiss the curl kissed color 
And eyes that softly shine. 



198 A Country Store Window. 

Oh ! that I might but tell ye 
In honest verse my love; 

How thy beauty doth compel me 
To seek the things above. 



For beauty such as thine is, 
Of all the kinds on Earth, 

The type of that divineness 
Whence cometh holy mirth. 

But be ye now, dear Virgin, 
My missal for a while 

And illuminate the margin 
With thy rich October smile. 

With a little sigh behind it. 
The sv/irl of a leaf from a tree 

For so I should not mind it, 
Were all that si eh for me. 



For I love thee, oh! I love thee 

And the long hall (now forsaken) ; 
Every room at old Glen — boskie 
That your sunshine will awaken; 
Every window you have looked through — every 
path that you have taken. 



Virginia. 199 



II. 



What more than thought can words express; 

What thought can set me free 
From the dear magic of th3^self 

And make thee less than "thee" ! 

No, no ; my rhyme cannot break through 
The web you weave around yourself; 

Nor do I wish it ; nor can you, 
If thou art true unto thyself. 

Thus am I yours till you are bound 

To be another — yourself lost; 
So long as 'twill not heal the wound 

Rhyme is the salve that serves me most. 



III. 

What, canst thou make me jealous with a Name? 

When thou'lt not let me see the water stains 
That climb into thine eyes and show the stream 

How it hath swollen with the recent rains? 
Oh ! I have said it ; one deceitful doubt 
Hath stabbed pure trust and the green eye creeps 
out. 



200 A Country Store Window. 

Oh ! heaven, thy nectar hath one drop too much ; 

The poison of a fiery tear from hell. 
I love thee, but I would this little touch 

Of hate could leaven all ; I love thee still. 
My faith, how maddening to know thou'rt pure, 
As I do love thee, yet to think — fool, fool, have 
done ! 
Oh! that thy word could fix my faith as sure 
As are the changing Stars to the unchanging 
Sun. 

IV. 
The Autumn leaves fall 
To the cold ground; 
With a sad sound 
Winds muse on the note 
That sounds sad as thy float. 
All the birds call, 
With a throb in the throat, 
The lost Summer. 

In tree and bush 

Chilled Nature turns flush, 

Sad and sweet. 
All in a low sigh 

She scatters the leaves 
And shivers as they lie 
Red and dead at her feet. 
Ah ! she grieves. 



Virginia. 201 

And the great green-hearted leaves o'er- 

head 
Turn hectic red ; 
And the sharp sun shoots 
Down deep in the hole 
Where the sap is bled 
At the naked roots; 
And the broad shade is shed 
On the gray oak bole 

No more; Virginia's gone. 

The Autumn leaves fall 

On the damp ground; 
Departing birds call 

With a sad sound 
The lost Summer. 
All the winds hail, 

From the drearier points; 
Dear Nature, grown pale. 

With her grave eyes, anoints 
The new comer. 

At set of Sun 

O'er purple hill and bush 
And mellow meadow 

Warm Nature's dimpled blush 

Chilled 
Burns to a graver flush 
While stilled 
In shadow. 



202 A Country Store Window. 

A cold wind o' winter cracks the ear. 

Winter's ready; 

Winter's here. 

Bush and hill 
And sky lie still 
In melancholy study. 

She is p-one. 



Possible to Know. 203 



ALL THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO KNOW. 

"What shall I read?" said the Pink to the Rose. 

"If I stare at the infinite sky 
] see it, an infinite mystery, close 

To a mortal ; to-morrow I die. 

*'If I look at the earth, the brown mother of all, 
I read of her death — and my own. 

If I look at thy leaves, ere they blush, ere they fall 
Where the winds of mild Summer have blown." 

Said the Rose to the Pink : "Do you think you can 
learn 
Of the infinite sky ere you die? 
You are stronger than m^e, yet you die in your 
turn 
Ere you know aught of earth or of sky. 

"Let these be; look at me. If I perish too soon, 
At the least you have seen what you know." 

"Ay, more," said the Pink, as a wind cut him 
down, 
"I know that I'll see perfect love where I go; 

That thy beauty, unfinished love under the Sun, 
Must grow perfect somewhere; not below." 



204 A Country Store Window. 



LINES ON A BOCK UNDERLINED 

I GAVE a girl a poetry book ; 

One she, I knov/, had wanted long, 
I gave it ; in return I took — 

An interest in Song. 

A year ago. But every line 

I once dared hint was too obscure, 

Lies buried now in note and sign. 
She loves someone, I'm sure. 

Two years ago! These lines I thought 
So weak have since been made secure 
By bars. Ah! Book, the meaning's caught; 
She loves — me ? Art thou sure ? 

Yes, Book with girlish underscore, 
You could not tell me half so much 

Had she not told thee all before 
By look, by tear, by touch. 



Song. 205 



SONG. 

O, Night — and one clear Star 

Enough to make thee live? 
Are there such nights (men say there are) 

That have no Star to give? 

O, Heart — and one pure love 

Enough to make thee man? 
(For men will swear what they cannot prove, 

But what you swear, you can.) 

Move they like Death athwart the Light 

Or fly before the Storm? 
But there's not a cloud in all the night 

Some Star will not transform. 

Should a Star to-night discover 

The love that lies in you, 
Make me, O, Love, that lover 

To swear the Light all true. 



206 A Country Store Window. 



TOUCHSTONE'S LENTEN POEM. 



The Body, 'tis I ; the Soul, 'tis She ; 
The Body is dead and the Soul is free ; 
And yet she was never bound to me 
In all the years that I lived for the Soul ; 
Only — / it was lived in the Soul's control. 



II. 



Rough weather's not half so unkind 
As this most gentle woman; 

Such storms leave not a sting behind, 
For such storms are not human. 

Love is a good thing and a great — 
For God's sake, go not near it, 

Ye who love and cannot hate ; 

O, Gift too good, too strong, too great 
For any man to bear it ! 



Touchstone's Lenten Poem. 207 

Ah! then the question: "Who's to blame 
If Love have crushed your Spirit? 

For Love ne'er from the Devil came ; 

But God." Go near, then, in God's name, 
And who shall bid you fear it ! 



Ill 



Farewell, farewell and once again farewell, 
And this the last tim.e; for I shall not see 
thee 

Of mine own will 'till thou hast broken the spell 
That lies upon me — or / drink of Lethe. 



Alas, my heart, that I might pluck thee out. 
Thou cleansed bird and offer thee to God 

My purest sacrifice, my most devout, 

That sin might find atonement 'neath the sod. 



No more may I learn purity from thine eyes 
But from my Conscience where thine eyes are 
still. 
No more, no more ! and can I realize 

What "no more" means? No more to do thy 
will 



208 A Country Store Window. 

While you look on and thank me with a smile. 

Oh ! now pray 1 with all my heart and mind 
That I forget thee not ; for all the while 

I see thy face that grew divinely kind 

At the last moment (Oh! the face so fair) 
With pity, methinks I feel a seer's spell 

That loving thee so madly must somewhere 
Be justified. Till then, dear girl, farewell. 



A Real Impromptu. 209 



A REAL IMPROMPTU. 

How lovely are the days of Spring 

When life begins to blossom 
And every bird is on the wing 

And love in every bosom. 

Bow down to Spring, the new-born King 
Of youthful Love and Wisdom! 

When all the birds are on the wing 
And love is in the bosom. 

I love thee, O, thou lovliest thing 
That Spring could ever welcome 

When every bird is on the wing 
And love's in every bosom. 

A plain gold ring and a pearl-set ring 
And oh ! for the Spring to choose 'em. 

When all the birds are on the wing 
And love's in every bosom. 



210 A Country Store Window. 



A STREET SELLER. 

O, World what would you do 
Were there no woman to move 

Your love to love? For it is true 
Women were born to love. 



A little large-eyed girl 

With things for sale that sell not 
Looks all day at the busy whirl 

With eyes that plead, but tell not. 



Poor little girl, you prove 
The woman in your eye ; 
And were you, too, child, born for love^ 
Who struggle first, then die? 



All the long, bleak day 

While men sit close together 
At home and warm their hands and say 

'I've seen the fire, brother," 



A Street Seller. 211 

You, child, stand still, alone 

Waiting your turn — to tire. 
Born for love ? You have neither known 

Nor looked for any fire. 

What can we do for such, 

Strong men who fear no fall ? 
Do what we can while we can touch 

The form. Can we do all ? 



212 A Country Store Window. 



THE SOUL. 

O, Soul, what art thou, then, 
Found only in the flesh of Man ; 

Wherever heart and brain consent 
To live an ordered plan? 

O, Soul what art thou, then, 
Who saith : ''My only grave 

Is in the flesh of living man; 
That dead, I rise and live"? 

I am the whole life of man, 
(/go not 'neath the sod) ; 

Life made immortal by a brain 
That knows there is a God. 



Burdens. 213 



BURDENS. 

"Old woman, I, too, had a burden ; 

Gone, I know not where; 
Or, if 'tis such a one as thine, 

'Tis one I well can bear. 

"But still you have my sympathy," 
The old man said, and took 

The faggots off the old bent back 
As it slowly stooped and shook. 

"God bless ye, old man. After all 
My burden's not so great; 

Since you have helped me see its size 
You've taken half the weight." 



214 A Country Store Window. 



A THEME WITH VARIATION. 

No. Wisdom will not find so great a wealth 
In all his searchings, as that he will come on, 

Homeward bound, in a true woman's heart — 
Pure, living gold, the love of a true woman. 



O, you who scorn in manly pride 
To grant a girl the noblest part, 

Remember this when you go hide 

Your beaten brain in some girl's heart, 

And find there Wisdom, proud and strong 

And simple as — the creed of Love. 
Then, trust me, you will not wait long 
Ere beaten brain begins to move. 

No. Searching Wisdom hath not found. 
Since that long day he did depart, 

A wealth like this when homeward bound, 
The living gold of a woman's heart. 



Hesitation. 215 



HESITATION. 

O, Juliette, 
A look, a look into thine eyes 

Once more and I am lost therein, 
Careless of all my Soul's disguise 
Whether or not it be a sin ! 
And yet, and yet 
Thine eyes are lights— that lead to Paradise. 

Must I pass by as though mine eyes 

And thine were turned of sculptor's stone? 
Not thine ; this buzz of human flies 
Tells me that thou art not alone. 
Forget, forget, 
My Soul, grow deaf, grow blind, grow dumb— 
grow wise. 



216 A Country Store Window. 



ST. PAUL. 

A MAN of massive mind; 

And with world-wisdom shod; 
Became serenely blind 

Before the eyes of God. 

He walks Earth undefiled, 

Sounds Earth with gnarled rod; 
Sees only the face of a little child, 

Trusts that and follows God. 



Music. 217 



MUSIC. 

O, HEAVENLY Miise, pure Soul of Inspiration 

Draw nearer with the music of thy wings ; 
Descend and on the pinions of Creation 

Raise me to Worlds where every Soul that 

Sings 
May be a brother to those who sing of other 
things. 

Where is the land of Art? Thus would I enter, 
With the sound of rushing wings upon mine 
ear; 
Half God, half man for love's sake ; yet no cen- 
taur, 
But every Soul help every Soul's desire 
By being perfect each in his career. 

Come, Love, too all ; but, love comes stronger 

With whatever Art she brings. 
Love delayed, delay no longer ; 

Come — with Music in your Wings. 



218 A Country Store Window. 



SONNET. 

Shroud me with half-forgetfulness, O, Night, 

Thou far-off echo of the josthng world, 
Thou mother of Dreams, twin sister of Day- 
light 

(Breeder of bold Realities that hurled 
Their rays so hotly at the harmless dreams 

So dear to the hearts of men) ; Night, veil my 
head 
With half-forgetfulness, that those hot beams 

Of Day when I remember them may shed 
A softer shower through my aching heart. 

Let me remember them but as the gold 
That gave a glory to her long, thick hair 

And added more to mine who was no part 
Of her, nor could be. Night, make me more bold 

To think I thought her beautiful — and not 
care. 



The First Act. 219 



THE FIRST ACT. 

Oh ! I remember well 

My first play ; how I thought 

The curtain that first fell 
Had cut the play so short. 

How when a boy in teens 

I sulked; although I knew 
There were more acts behind the scenes, 

Impatient to look through. 

In truth, we but begin, 

When we think the play is o'er; 
Fate puts another finger in, 

And the wheel goes 'round once more. 

Love, what if we now part ! 

I know 'tis not the end. 
But, oh ! for a look behind the heart ; 

You, my love, and I — your friend. 

But — this is not the end. 



220 A Country Store Window. 



POINTS OF VIEV. 

Rich or poor; which would you be, 

Rider or one who lags? 
But he who rides can never see 

The way the old world wags; 

Nor would he ride with so much pride 
Bones that can go no faster, 

Could he but see (has he ever tried?) 
The work-horse and the Master; 

Whether with tears or whether laughter, 
I know not which of the twain; 

But certain it is that somewhat softer 
Would he hold the rein. 



The Year and the Woman. 221 



THE YEAR AND THE WOMAN. 

The Year is like a woman 

Growing, first to last : 
There's your April weather 

No man can forecast. 



Not until the Summer 
Is the season sure ; 

Love must overcome her 
Ere the maid's mature. 



Then the cold age cometh, 
Hardens the tilled ground; 

And who can guess what bloometh 
Till he tap and sound? 



But the last storm cometh 
And the night profound 

When the white wind boometh ; 
After that — no sound. 



222 A Country Store Window. 

O, Paradise and Spring-time, 
What are you on Earth? 

A woman's voice at sing-time 
When she hath given birth. 



The Immortal Chord. 223 



THE IMMORTAL CHORD. 

They had no coat of arms, no plate, 

No portraits on the wall ; 
They had no broad, green real estate, 

No name historical. 



They loved — but all they had to give 
Was what they had to save. 

They only labored but to live 
Until they reached the grave. 



Their weapon was a simple knife — 

No blade of subtletees 
That kills and makes death a still bit of Life 

To all — save him who dies. 



Not quite one hundred years have past 
And what they wrote and spoke. 

Into Time's pit of purging cast. 
Hath all gone up in smoke. 



224 A Country Store Window. 

Still they were men, God knows, and fed 

The fire of Life-on-Earth ; 
They were alive — now they are dead 

We hold their gift of birth. 



Who can forget the men who go before! 

They live in us — in us have their new-birth ; 
For how can immortality be more 

Than this, the Immortality of simple men on 
Earth. 

Every note of Life contains a choice 
Of harmony or discord : Every tone 

Of Nature, every sound of human voice 
Soul's rendering of Gifts not all her own, 

That other Souls, receiving the Design 

May add a native note towards the Divine. 

That any man (so marvelous it is!) 

Should feel at times the Power to control 
The orchestra of other Souls like his ; 

So mighty is the Organ of the Soul — 
When the reverberation of her Prime 

Through centuries awakes in living words 
Harmonies that become, each in their Time, 

The Fundamental of all hum.an chords! 



The Performer. 225 



THE PERFORMER. 

Two things which other artists dread 

You contemplate with scorn: 
The ChilHng Shadow of the Dead ; 

The Mock of the Unborn. 
You but compete with Kin and Kith, 
They with — who knows ? Perhaps a myth 
When all is done and said. 

Nothing can ripen your renown 

After the fruit has fallen ; 
What Time brings in is all your own, 

Nor borrowed, begged, nor stolen, 
All the seed which you have sown 

You shall reap and you alone. 
Each bay to which your fame has grown 

A man can mark; but is it known 
How other fames are swollen ? 

Canst thou draw sap from parent stem 
To make the whole growth richer? 

Is that fhy child, the Age to come? 
Alas, how can you teach her ? 



226 A Country Store Window. 

All your art lies in the gem 
We see upon your diadem. 

You we commend, you we condemn; 
You are your art's best feature. 



The Poet. 227 



THE POET. 

The Poet looks within him ; 

Takes knowledge of each force 
And bids them knit into a Power. 

Then he shapes his course. 

The Poet looks about him, 

Sees those whom he can teach; 
With a great arm sweep flings out his Power 

As far as he can reach. 

A few along with him 

And he casts his strength again; 
With a wider sweep draws in to him 

Twice as many men. 

The Poet looks above him, 

Points to a Light afar, 
Cries out to those who have learnt to love him, 

'Tollow ! That's our Star." 



228 A Country Store Window. 



THE PROPHET. 

God, Creator of the Universe, 
Once visited a creature with a curse. 
Since then have men been falling down from bad 
to worse. 

All men, heirs to this curse, have sunk below 
Their fathers. Since the fathers did not 

show 
How to fulfill God's will, how should the children 

know? 

God chooses, sometimes, from the maudlin 

crowd 
A will, a ray of light in a thunder cloud, 
Winding and finding its way to the Sun where it 

veins the shroud. 

Towards such a Will God throws a Light, I 

say, 
And swears that such a Will will He obey 
As oft as it hath chosen, humbly, God's own v/ay. 



The Prophet. 229 

A child, thus, lying sick e'en at death's door 
Recovers life and lives it as before. 
No miracle is this; just Nature, nothing more. 
But, God, the child lying sick e'en unto 

death. 
Will not restore until the Prophet saith 
"Restore this child, O, God, and justify my 
faith." 
Here is a Miracle, you say ; I say 
Like Miracles are solving every day. 
Only — to mark them, Man, the Prophet, first 
must pray. 
Say, then, "There was no Power in rny 

prayer ; 
Only in Man can God to Man declare 
The Power that lies about us everywhere." 



230 A Country Store Window. 



THE VALUE OF FAILURE. 

I SAW a flower die last night ; 

Its petals shut like arms in prayer 
At point of death, and the inner light 

Went out in breath somewhere. 



I knew it had a soul thereby 

(Call mine, if you will, a simple wit) 
Though the lack-lustre of mine eye 

Could not have fathomed it. 



Ah! then the grace of morning came 
And touched the petals wide apart 

In praise ; the flower was just the same— 
With a Soul deep in the heart. 



A friend of mine whose only child 
Died on his knees, cried *'God is dead ; 

The world hath failed."— Just then God smiled 
And drew out tears instead. 



The Value of Failure. 231 

I made a verse ; it had no life, 
So once I thought, and let it be ; 

Until you came to be my wife 
And showed its Soul to me. 

So God hath taught us how to see 
The smallest part may be the whole; 

That faith, though failing, cannot be 
Unworthy of a Soul. 

But one more word and I have done : 
That Love perfects whatever fails, 

Just as your love, God's smile, the Sun, 
Makes live what it unveils. 



232 A Country Store Window. 



O, TEMPORAj O, MORES. 

A Model Age ! I know a man 
(And so, I think, do you and you) 
Who seems unto these other two 

A moral, model citizen. 



Because his make is all self-make 
And better, therefore, than the work 
Of any God that chanced to lurk 

Within : a Soul for his Soul's sake ? 



Not altogether that, but half 
Because the ''Real Amphitryon 
Is he with whom we dine," and none 

Much cares to look outside of self. 



He hides his purse — but lets it fall. 
You see the silk ; without surprise 
You find it's sow; for otherwise 

He would not drop his purse at all. 



O, Tempora, O, Mores. 233 

And so, he's honored to the grave. 
None lets himself believe the trick 
That made his neighbor's Soul go sick ; 

The dead man's Neighbor is the knave. 



234 A Country Store Window. 



THE RISE OF THE SELF-MADE MAN. 

Self-making men, still struggling in the tide, 
Blind to the glitter of the fisher's net, 

Beneath the bubbles of the brain still glide; 
They have not risen to the surface yet. 

And yet, and yet, and yet ! How soon that tide 
Which seems to shoot them into Fortune's net, 

Shall cast them, gasping, on the shores of Pride, 
To win at last the little name of — *'J^t!" 

A. fossilized black fishbone, the rich gem 
That hangs on poor men's necks — and strangles 
them. 



Growing Horizons. 235 



GROWING HORIZONS. 

A LITTLE girl in a garden 
With bovv^ered wall about 

Too tall for her to lean on 
Tiptoe to look out. 



And so the little garden 
To little girl remained 

A little while her Eden. 
Sun shone and rain rained 



Till she grew a little taller, 
Could peek beyond the wall. 

When garden world grew smaller 
And little girl grev/ tall. 



Now looks the married maiden 
The wide world over. Eyes 

Just not a little laden 

With the wet o' love-lit skies. 



236 A Country Store Window. 

Child-life was the only 
Life my child allowed, 

Till she grew big and lonely 
And passed out in the crowd. 

The only life, this garden, 
The big world ever knew 

Till growing out of Arden, 
We take the all-round view. 



My College World. 237 



MY COLLEGE WORLD. 

Like a Library whose books 
Are bound by the Librarian's looks 
For fear you steal a book away, 
So glut yourself with them to-day 
Because to-morrow you go home. 
Or like the world to which you come 
Without a stitch save human nature; 
No whit better than the creature 
Born ten thousand years ago. 
And out you go again — so-so. 

That is the college world I know^ 
A narrow self-sufficiency 
At back, in front, on either side. 
Out come the boys this world to see 
With a contentious kind of pride. 
But one step more — that is to die 
In hopeless mediocrity. 



238 A Country Store Window. 



TRUTH. 

Idols out of self, 

Self-made, will stand on high 
Till self neglects to worship, 

When they wither like a lie. 

Who looks for the Truth within him 
(That which hath always been) 

Falls — if he cease to worship 
That Unknown, that Unseen. 



Marriage. 239 



MARRIAGE OF THE PRESENT WITH THE 
FUTURE. 

The Present is as old as Earth, 
Yet ever young and strong; 

He married Future ; she gave birth 
To those twins — Right and Wrong. 



240 A Country Store Window. 



THE INEVITABLE. 

The World, were all men born on Poverty Flats. 

Would still be ruled by aristocracy. 
But if all men were born aristocrats 

Where would that power born of struggle be? 



Beethoven. 241 



BEETHOVEN. 

Immortal Brothers of my Mistress Art, 
There is more vigor in your lofty wings 
That in the Soul itself of one who sings 

To bear his song, rejoicing, to the Mart. 

Beethoven, Master of my Mistress Art, 

There is more Soul within thy soaring wing 
Than in the Souls of all thy Sons who sing 

And drag their songs down to the common Mart. 



242 A Country Store Window. 



HIS SHADOW TO LOUIS XV. 

Drink and bebauch the flesh? That's no bad 

thing ; 
I, not my body, am the King. 'True, Sire; 
While thou hast life men know that thou art 

King." 
Be still; wouldst thou suggest — pray, no hell 

fire. 

If I should ask "What am I when Life's gone ? 

Just that ; when neither self nor form are power 
Life rallies the King-power ; Self and form in one 

Make Life; so, scatter these — the King's a 
flower. 

"O, King, spite of thyself art thou revered ! 
What more, then, art thou, when that self has 
fled? 
Look, now; behold, thy form that once was 
feared 
An empty bottle thrown aside — an uncorked 
shadow — dead." 



The Great Man. 243 



THE GREAT MAN WHO IS ALWAYS WITH US* 

In Society, a truly great man passes unnoticed with 
the dignity of one who feels himself to be above them 
who think themselves above him. 

'Tis true, though men have laughed me down, 

That sometimes men would rather walk 
Acioss the fields to Shanty-Town 

Than loll along the thoroughfare 
With a fat, indulgent air, 
To make the village shopmen talk. 

A true man passes through the crowd. 
Who turns to look at him ? Not I 

For one ; I knew him when I bowed ; 
He's nothing to the Passer-by. 

The good man toiling in the town 

Who spins his life from door to door 

In homely cloth, seeks no renown 

Save that which binds him to the poor. 



244 A Country Store Window. 



TRAGI-COMEDY, 

Tragedy is Life, and Life is war, 
That ever-fruithful mother of all wars 
Into whose arms all naked Souls are thrown 
To fight for the milk of immortality. 
Under her own flesh-form of Comedy 
Beats the True Tragic Child towards Life im- 
mortal 



The Ideal Woman. 245 



THE IDEAL WOMAN. 

O, PERFECT Flower among the flower beds, 
Rose are you rightly named, for from thorny 

cradle 
Into a Rose you grew — with a woman's heart 

thereto. 

O, Woman-flower among the flower beds 

Picking your rose-friends from their thorny 
cradles 
(Faint hearts that now first lift their hopeful 
heads) 
Give me a Rose-friend, too; yourself, your 
heart' s-self — Yoic. 



246 A Country Store Window. 



A MARE'S NEST. 

"A Man is born but to fulfill 
God's Will ; therefore he must 

Do good and evil at God's Will. 
Yet you say God is just. 

My Son, the World can live in no man 

Till he first dwells in it. 
As a man may love an evil woman 

Whom he knows not fit ?" 

My Son, but few men can afford 
To love the dim, day-star; 

Few men, with faith in that reward 
Do good; half-Gods men are. 

''Then, Sir, for what will men repent. 
Who have, you say, no faith?" 

Man's half-God must be made content, 
His Self, the old man saith. 

Therefore they can be perfect yet 
Who let not their world's breath 

Blur their own face till they forget 
And bear down all to death. 



Music. 247 



MUSIC 

In my Soul stirs the tongue of the Angel of 
Death. 

Alas, for its smothered wit, 
When the dumb Spirit gasps for breath 

Freely to utter it! 

No. Shall a Spirit deliver the mind 
Of God in a many-tongued noise? 

Music — that mystery in the wind, 
Is Spirit, and Spirit's voice. 



248 A Country Store Window. 



GOD'S LOVE. 

Man's love is a Cataract, 
And woman's love, the sea; 

But God's Love is the Mighty Fact 
That moves both you and me. 



The Wonder-Workers. 249 



THE WONDER-WORKERS. 

Lo, a little wonder Star 

Hath dropped a tear upon the ground; 
Where the wonder-workers are 

Many tears are to be found. 

Lo, the little wonder Star 

Draws a tear out of the ground ; 

Where no wonder-workers are 
There no human tears are found. 



250 A Country Store Window. 



OUTLINE FOR A TRAGEDY. 

John was older than his blind brother; 

The head of his father's house ; 
Married one woman — but loved another, 

The sister of his spouse. 



Married the rich, but loved the fair 
Whose fortune was — her face, 

Whose father had said, *'Her sister's care 
Shall keep her from disgrace. 



"And she shall wed whom she prefers; 

Is he poor (though work he must). 
Half her sister's wealth is hers" — 

As justice it was just. 



But, jealous wife, was your husband sold? 

(You say your husband "Kissed her"!) 
You knew he married you for your gold 

And — for your lovely sister? 



Outline for a Tragedy. 251 

And so you hate that sister. Why? 

She hates your John ; his scorn 
Of his bhnd brother makes her cry 

For pity — love is born. 

They were betrothed; half your estate 
Then turned towards them. Ah! now 

One sees the reason of your hate, 
The Crime upon your brow. 

"John — (is Evil in the blood 

Or money, then, so great?) 
John, make him think she is not good — 

And they will separate." 

Cries John : **The irony of Fate !" — 
("My sister's shame?" thinks she?) 

"Oh! that the glory of man's sight should mate 
With one who cannot see!" 

"Hist, brother mine! that you could see 

Your bride is — beautiful." 
"Well, brother, what is that to me ? 

Is she not dutiful ?" 

Then, half-determined, half in fear 

Of a sleeping self-surprise, 
John drops into his brother's ear 

That poison of a subtle tear, 



252 A Country Store Window. 

Half-sympathy, that lies 

So near, alas, so very near 
The "Sesame" of eyes ; 

"An ugly woman's not exempt 
From that which tempts them all. 

Think how much more will the Devil tempt 
A pretty one — to fall." 

Oh ! Love, blind Love that only sees 

The pure, unspotted Soul ! 
Others but see the part they please. 

You see the perfect whole. 

Oh! Night, what things do you reveal! 

Were the blind man better dead? 
But — the blind eyes flashed upon her steel, 

"He sees me!" and she fled. 

Oh ! Day, what things do you conceal 

By making them too plain ? 
How can so soft a voice reveal 

That woman's hate again? 

The blind boy towards the river's brim 

Walks — as in a dream ; 
With subtle voice she calls to hiir» 

Gently across the stream : 



Outline for a Tragedy. 253 

^'Dear lad, are you dreaming that your wife 

Is not what she would seem?" — 
The vision of that flashing knife 

Conjured in his eyes' gleam, 

As he lifts his head. But one step more 

To a grave he knows not of — 
John's oath — and a cry and a splash from the 
other shore, 

But here — the Arm of Love. 

Yes, John has thrust his wife to hell. 

By this he came to loathe her. 
The sudden shattering of her Spell 

In pity for his brother. 

This moment's act of love and hate 

Hath drawn him near, too near 
The black fulfillment of a Fate 

Which he begins to fear. 

Between him and his treasured hell 

Lives only the blind boy — 
God strike him ere his mind can dwell 

On what he would destroy. 



254 A Country Store Window. 



THE LONG JOURNEY. 

To leave the world behind ! 

The world which I have loved 
Because the only world my mind 

Can swear to, having proved. 



I am Here — but I go ; and the men 
That have made my vast world, stay. 

And I never shall see their faces again. 
Till the world has passed away; 



Till the many men that are 

And the Millions more on their way 
Have passed beyond this Star 

And left it to decay. 



Out into darkest Space, 
With not a look behind — 

Though never more to see a face 
To hear naup'ht but the Wind ! 



The Song Journey. 255 

I flutter like a feather 

Because the Preacher saith: 
"The wings that brought thee hither 

Must carry thee through Death." 

I do exceeding fear 

Although my Spirit saith: 
"The wings that brought thee here 

Will carry thee through Death." 



256 A Country Store Window. 



A VACATION LETTER. 

Since Byron lacked the skill to finish Juan 
I thought Vd add a verse or two for him 

And save that masterpiece from utter ruin, 
Th' approval of all Critics "in the swim" 

Who love a thing the less the nearer finished 

For thus their chance of guessing right's dimin- 
ished. 

But why should I particularly choose 
To write to you in this Juanic stanza? 

The answer simply is the most abtruse 

You'll find in logic — for there is no answer; 

That is, if one could always find a reason 

There'd be no reason thus to do at any season. 

Oh! shall I tell in raptures of the Journey 
(Where sit the green-hills decked with little 
towns) 

Much like the Diary of Frances Burney, 

Who tells us how she kept the Royal Gowns 

Of Thing-um-bob, the wife of George the Third? 

I haven't read th' book ; it's what I've heard. 



A Vacation Letter. 257 

I'm sorry I began to write in verse; 

As to Macbeth sev'n Royal Ghosts uprose, 
One rhyme invokes another even worse 

And leads the understanding by the nose. 
Oh! Rhyme, how have ye molly-coddled Youth 
And lead him into telling an Untruth ! 

Shall I describe our journey, how it slips 

By Cornwall where the waters, sly, caressing 

With ever seeming timid linger tips. 

Touch the shore with a deceitful blessing ? 

Plunge inland, headlong through the hills and 
leave 

That ever-ready river to deceive. 

The Panoramic view is very fine ; 

This house sufficiently attractive, too. 
With Summer friends (including a Divine). 

I think we'll stay, and live upon the view ; 
The food and beds have, although bone and stone, 
A certain kind of grace, too, of their own. 

Oh! Idleness, how justly art thou cursed 
Who can so swiftly drive one to the worst! 

Myself, my Summer Friends with the Divine — 
(I know 'tis rude to mention myself first, 

But, then, I must and keep the rhyme in line) 
I say, since gay Terpsichore's tiptoed hence 
We're driven to cards and such-like impotence. 



258 A Country Store Window. 

This house's keeper drives it in a groove 
Behind a larger house kept by his brother; 

!No dancing; not because he doesn't approve 
But so as not to be behind another; 

For to join a donkey race, of course, 
You've got to ride a donkey, not a horse 
Or be yourself the donkey, which is worse. 

There is a place not far from here, "Sam's Point," 
Where idle Pilgrims in the blazing Sun 

Convey their lemonade and a cold joint 
And sacrifice them to the God of Fun. 

Yon band goes hence, to come back starving, 
p'raps, 

For, though their Staff is bread, their Scrip is 
scraps. 

The wind sighs o'er this Single Mountain top 

Like a lone Spirit doomed to find no rest 
But sighing, at last dying seems to drop 
Dead into the valley of the Blest, 
(That's Ellenville for those who don't live there; 
Yet those who do speak so-so of the fare.) 

There is a seat upon this mountain side 
Where, sitting, one may see across the vale 

The distant habitations far and wide 
Where ev'ry cottage whitens like a sail 

(To catch the breezes of approaching night) — 

One moment poised — and they are out of sight. 



A Vacation Letter. 259 

Then like a charm upon the jangled ear 
Steals Silence from the valley to the heights 

And one by one the valley lights appear, 
The mountain fires and the moving lights. 

But, oh! but, oh! that musical soft sally, 

The silver song that rises from the valley. 

We had a good address from young Alexis 
(The Rev.) last Sunday, with repeated calls. 

If I remember right I think he takes his 
Text from that Epistle of St. Paul's, 

Where he draws the difference between 

A Hope that is and Hope that is not seen. 

From ten to one we take a morning drive. 

The day is not too hot, nor yet too cloudy. 
Beside the team and driver, we are five. 

Though the Divine is just a little rowdy. 
Soon we shall go where golf on fashion fawns; 
That is, we'll lounge about the spacious lawns, 
Indulge in tepid smiles and tea and yawns. 

Whether I continue in this strain 

(For strain it is!) depends upon the weather; 
My Muse is like a cat and hates the rain. 

Likewise the Sun, and Sun and Rain together. 
But there — it rains. So endeth my epistle 
And if you look for News — you'll have to whistle. 



260 A Country Store Window. 



WOMAN. 

Our Life is all true means unto an End, 

And woman Youth's most heavenly means and 
human ; 
There's one we must, alas, excuse, O, Friend — 
That man lives long enough to lose that youth- 
ful love of woman. 

O, woman, undoer of man. 

Made to be man's inspiration 
Put your lips to the cup in your hand 

Ere you drink of the Cup of Damnation ; 
Of the wine of the river that ran 
(Where the ruins of Babylon stand) 
Rapidly through the whole Nation. 

O, woman, undoer of Souls, 

Meant to be Soul's inspiration, 
First drink of your holier bowls 

Ere you drink yours and man's damnation. 



Song. 261 



SONG. 

Oh, oh, but digging days were dull 
Amid the showers of wet leaves 
All alone ! 
But now the golden grain is full 

Your face shines laughing through the sheaves 
You, my own. 



262 A Country Store Window. 



TRANSLATION. 

Lourdes, ah, I'Espoire, etaient ces Jours 
Accablees sous les feuilles mortes, 
Funebres Fleures! 
I/Espoir, plein tou jours de 1' Amour, 
N'y voir-je pas ces Jours la sortant, 
Comme Moissonneur? 



The Immortal Dynasty. 263 



THE IMMORTAL DYNASTY. 

If you want to be happy, be good ; 

If you want to be good — ^be a fool; 
Such was the wisdom of Budh 
And Budh has founded a School, 
And out though the gates of his solitude 
Pours Universal Rule. 



Budh's Dynasty still reigns, 

Nirvanah's happy race, 
Who take such clumsy pains, 

To fill the world with Grace, 
Swayed by the might of the sluggish brains 
From the Throne of the Commonplace. 



And well that it is so ; 

For fools are wise men, dumb, 
Who know well what they know 

And look for the World to come; 
Who count this world but a puppet show 
And ever babbling drum. 



264 A Country Store Window. 

If some of them hypocrites be 

Too happy and good to be true, 
They conceal it from you and from me, 
So it's nothing to me or to you. 
The color of earth is the color we see 
From our limited point of view. 



Studies in Light and Shade. 265 



STUDIES EST LIGHT AND SHADE. 
I. 

Ah, Miriam, without chaffing, 

It is a grave mistake 
My looking on and laughing 

At ev'ry move I make. 

Brave Time came one bright season 
And strung me to the fight ; 

Still, like a spoiled rain, reason 
Kept drizzling half the night. 

I leaped to my long-bow, naming 
My one short prayer, my prize ; 

Trembling and aiming 

By the starlight of your eyes. 

Were I as swiftly speeding 

As arrow to its mark 
Would your heart be there bleeding 

Hit— hit in the dark? 



266 A Country Store Window. 
II. 

In the morning the shadows of darkness 
Fly away to I know not where, 

But in their room cursed loneHness 
Leans o'er the back of my chair, 

Murmuring "Miriam" ever and mocks 
The murdered silence there, 

Making the memory of thy Name 
A madman's shadowy care. 

III. 

Ah, Miriam, without chaffing 

It is a grave mistake 
My looking and laughing 

At ev'ry move I make. 

Blind Night came one wise season 

And launched me out to sea 
While, like a spoiled rain, reason 

Drizzled constantly. 

But I came to my New World, nearing 

Not as the eagle flies, 
But trembling and steering 

By the North Star of your eyes. 



Studies in Light and Shade. 267 
IV. 

True love is like the air that sings — 

O, armour-bearer regal 
Bearing up the battered wings 

About the warring eagle! 

My soul is, like the eagle's wing, 

Invisibly supported 
Over ev'ry evil thing 

This vain world ever courted. 

From heaven, like a miracle 
The Power of Light descended 

Over the storm and touched to Form 
That which kept me suspended. 

Fly, Spirit with the golden wing, 

Flash, fly into my heart, 
And, if I know whereof I sing, 

You never shall depart. 



V. 



In the morning the shadows of darkness 
Fly away to I know not where 

But now in their place there's a Miriam 
Leans o'er the back of my chair; 



268 A Country Store Window. 

A mated, married Miriam — Mine 
By the sunlight in her hair! 

And not the memory of her name 
But her own self my care. 



VI. 



I arose a swiftly speeding 

Arrow to its mark 
Then — felt your warm heart bleeding 

Hit— hit in the dark. 

True love is like the air that sings 
Around the warring eagle, 

Bearing up his battered wings. 
Hail, armour-bearer regal. 



The Last Straw. 269 



THE LAST STRAW. 

Does nagging wear the temper thin 

Bare down to the very nerve? 
They say you have, then, a thin skin 

And get what you deserve. 

That touchy fool of a thin-skin 

Gets well what he deserves; 
Pshaw! Naggs don't wear the temper thin 

Down bare to the quivering nerves. 



270 A Country Store Window. 



PHANTASMAGORIA. 

A BLIND Worm curls upon the earth's fair breast, 
(An endless, helpless chain of loving souls. 
Slavers and slaves most cursedly caressed 
Each by the other) full of eyes like holes 
Of waspish hell-fire through a thin cold glaze 
Like the red moon on many dying days. 
Not blessed, the best; 
The worst, cursed. 



O, lover mortal chained to lover mortal, 
Slaves and slavers in an endless chain, 

Pray to heaven to be forgiven. 
Shriven ere you love again. 



Good and evil human man and woman, 

Go the way of all mankind ; 
Pray to heaven to be forgiven. 

Shriven for the human Mind. 



Phantasmagoria. 27 1 

Follow, human man and woman, 

Where your heart is most inclined; 

The Best— the Worst— the Blind— not Blind; 

Uncertain, like a serpent wind 

In and out until you fmd 

That common zvay of all mankind ! 

O, thou Devil, there's no evil 

Save the Evil in man's Mind I 



272 A Country Store Window. 



SONNET. 

The Pulses of immortal Time are found 

Never — save in the changing minds of men; 

For nothing mind hath ever touched is sound 
But changes, ripens and grows old and then 

Falls forgotten, rotten to the ground. 

A day may lengthen out to many a year 

And be a day — w^hen — lo ! a Thought takes 
fire 

And in a day a thousand years grow^ sere, 
While Time, without a pause upon his lyre, 

Changes the mode, with neither smile nor tear. 

Nothing grows old save Thought which hath the 
whole 
Universal Nature in which to range. 
And Nature hath no Age ; then, O, my soul 
There is no Age, for neither you nor Nature 
change. 



The Coward. 273 



THE COWARD. 

Coward! Your King, is he right 
To expect you to fight for him? No? 
Lest you die on the field in the fight, 
Lest you yield to the enemy's might 
You fly from the camp in the night 
To the camp of the foe 
Whose midnight revelry runs at first sight of the 
Light; 

And their flight 
Is not slow. 



274 A Country Store Window. 



HEART OF HEARTS. 

This talismanic amulet 

Will melt hell-fire to lips of Love, 
Unlock Heaven's diamond gateway set 

Against the grating of the Golden Glove. 

Heaven's gates fly open at the touch of Love 

And Earth turns in as one pursued of Hell, 
Rests there awhile within a Natural grove 

And drinks refreshm^ents from a Natural well 
And then — no more a scape-goat for Hell's hu- 
mors — 
Earth runs not out into the wilderness 
Where whisperings are and mockeries, and ru- 
mors, 
But forth to do battle with the merciless 
Who then, when night at dawn's first trembling 

starts, 
Find their first mercy and their Heart of Hearts. 



The Place of Prayer. 275 



THE PLACE OF PRAYER. 

Yes, one may praise God anywhere. 
Less in the Town's discordant glare, 
Where men with men crowd and compare, 
Than in the open country air 
Where man may wonder God should care 
For man, and breath a humble prayer 
That he with that vast Nature there 
A little of God's love may share. 



276 A Countiy Store Window 



SONGS OF AMERICAN YEOMAN. 

I. 

Sing, O, for your Puppets be-lorded and earled 

Who were good enough flesh when their titles 

began ! 

But what shall we call the Live Lords of a 

World, 

With the moral and physical courage of Man? 



Had they willed it, our Sires of foreign descent, 
We, too, had worn Crowns like the cap pulling 
Guilds ! 

But the Glory of Free men never was meant 
To shine o'er a name but a Nation that builds. 



Are we waiting for Lordlings to give us a stand 
In the world's Aristocracy? Ah, don't you 
know 

That our Liberty Pilgrims, by sea and by land 
Are the best Aristocracy Manhood can show. 



Songs of American Yeoman. 277 

The blood of our Fathers, in vain is it shed 
When the Sons call the Foe to come laugh o'er 

their Dead. 
Who are they who have made it a thing of small 

credit 
To be an American? They who have said it. 



II. 



Silver is silver, but Gold is Man's Standard of 
Wealth; 

Nor can man's Alchemy color Dishonor by 
stealth 

And pass it for Honor — where Honor's ac- 
customed to move. 

Like the King in the blaze of the Sun with the 

Touchstone of Gold, 
To lighten the Loyal — to flash through the heart 

— to unfold — 
To force the hairy hand from the silver glove. 

The cursed consuming of Life in the Battle of 

Gain 
Hath left us no Standard save Silver and Gold 

and these twain 
Are the gods we must die for. Death we deserve 

and not Mercy. 



278 A Country Store Window. 

This Song's in our heart and we must sing it 

out 
A Song of Faith in our welfare, Faith without 

doubt ; 
For the Sword of Justice hath a broad blade of 

JMercy. 

The Millions who march to the tune of the 

Golden Shower 
Mark by the size of their City their Progress and 

Power — 
But there's War and Want in the Town — in the 

Fields, Peace and Plenty. 



III. 



He IS the Heir to her toils who is proud of his 

mother ; 
He who is proud of her, fights for her, and for no 

other. 
The true born Son of the soil is the Lord we love. 

Are we afraid to be proud of her ? Have we no 

reason 
To lift up our heads with a shout for her? All 

in due season. 
The true born son to the front ! As the past can 

prove. 



Songs of American Yeomen. 279 



IV. 



God's purposes o'er this Western Hemisphere, 
This fair and fruitful Garden, free to the Salt 
Of every Nation, are so evident 
JVho can suppose He means to lay it waste 
Before the first harvest and first vintage time? 



Alas, for the reigning Power so weak 
Whose strongest argument is War 

For War's sake, lest his People wreak 
Vengeance — who fears his People more! 



Oh, pitiful reason at Madrid 

That holds a War worth while, to keep 
Weakness in Power, God forbid 

That so many lives be held so cheap! 



And yet when the battle of Words is won 
We'll do what ours elect to do 

And nothing — after the Word has gone — 
Shall make us to ourselves untrue. 



280 A Country btore Window. 



VI. 

O'er the Battle of Life Christ raised His hand 
and said : 
''Blessed are the Merciful, for they 
Shall receive mercy" — no mercy came; instead 

Another Battle took fire; from that day 
For these Words, daily, for twenty hundred 
years 
There have been Men found willing to pay the 
Price, 
The Price of shame, contempt, oppression, tears, 
Discouragements, heart-renderings, scornful 

laughter, 
Patience unappeased — Death — and what after? 

This day that Price is justified ! To Spain 
A Christian People have returned their foes 

Twenty thousand prisoners home again 

To spread the wide wisdom that From Mercy 
flows. 

VII. 

Our Saxon feud of parted Blood 
The madness of dammed waters. 

Is free at last in a mingling flood 
Of generous Sons and Daughters. 



Songs of American Yeomen. 281 

By drum beat of one Blood 
March we to one Great Good 

Mighty and Just; 
May this one Battle Song 
Make us superbly stong: 
"Onward to right the wrong; 

In God we trust." 

May we in every land 
Shoulder to shoulder stand 

One among Men. 
Give us that Power to give 
Peace to the Nations ; live 
True to Thy service: thrive 

Ever ! — Amen. 



282 A Country Store Window. 



TO MARY ON GOING INTO THE COUNTRY. 

Away to your green life so soon 
From me and the yellow city! 

Mary mocks me to the tune 
Of "Pity, pity, pity." 

The golden, garden life again 
For you; for me the old refrain 
Of "Pity, pity, pity." 



The North and South Poles. 283 



THE NORTH AND SOUTH POLES, 

To make thyself worthy of a woman — love her. 
And thou shalt be her equal — good or sinning ; 
Think not that what you are will ever move 
her; 
She is the Pole 'round which the Earth is spin- 
ning. 



284 A Country Store Window. 



EDUCATION FOR THE POOR. 

We organize gret "Classes" 

Fur to elevate the "Masses" 
And learn 'em fust, that 2 and 2 makes four. 

Now, they ain't ashamed to grant 

This fac\ but what they want 
Is to stretch that number into 5 or more. 



I reckon 'tis much better 

Fur to learn 'em not the letter 
But to reccernize the Spirit of all Rules, 

An', fust of all, to take 

Those critters and to make 
The Kinder garden take the place o' Schools, 



Until they come to feel 

That it's better not to steal. 
Because what isn't there'n ain't quite their own, 

And many more sich rules, 

(Which isn't taught in Schools), 
As let that well, that well is, well alone. 



Education for the Poor. 285 

Then give 'em yer big vollum' 
Full o' Larning, long and Solum 

Like a loaded cannon spilin' for a toon. 
An' I warrant they won't puzzle 
With their heads rammed down the muzzle 

And their silly feet a'-wavin' at the Moon. 

Edicaytion fur the Poor 

Is a grand thing, mighty sure, 
When yu show 'em how to aim it and at what; 

So, the best way is to start in 

Some kind o' Kindergarten 
And to learn 'em how to stan' behind the shot. 



286 A Country Store Window. 



A PLEASANT THOUGHT. 

It is a pleasant thought that cheerful Time 
Keeps ever running out of the Sublime Past, 

With all the heritage of a Golden Prime, 
To greet the Present, change it e'er so fast, 

Nor Time, nor Tide, nor Life rest — yet they flow 
And ebb and cast their bread upon the waters, 

And the wheat-bearing banks in beauty grow 
From seeds that have been sown from manv 
quarters. 



An Essay on Byron. 287 



AN ESSAY ON BYRON. 

Why the nobility have been arraigned 

For no ability hath never been explained. 

No doubt I've read my Byron somewhat brisker 

Than wiser men who plough and never sow; 
But Byron, the best of Bards (If I may risk a 

Judgment in a case I cannot know.) 
He rises from their midst like fertile Pisgah 

With the red sea and the wilderness below — 
(The simile would be completer still 
Were Pisgah a volcano, not a hill.) 
Enough! More can't be said of him in eight 

Lines, save ''gush" (that other pretty trick 
Of critics who cannot discriminate) 

A modern substitute for Rhetoric. 
I wonder will they soon eliminate 

The Line of Beauty for a Pedant's Stick ? 
Or are v/e striving to illuminate 

Our lamps with wind — a Pedant tongue for 
wick? 



288 A Country Store Window, 



THE ATTACHE OF THE FOREIGN LEGATION. 

Two hours a day — 

Six month's vacation — 
Five hundred pounds pay 

And the thanks of the Nation ! 



To the " Patron " of Letters. 289 



TO THE ♦^PATRON" OF LETTERS. 

Oh! Genius will not flee 

Your hue and racket; 
"Show us where swarms the bee 

And we'll attack it." 

Critics and Editors 
Who feign to ask it, 
You'll find your Creditors— 
In your waste Basket. 



290 A Country Store Window. 



THE POETIC FEELING IN ART. 

Poetry is that calm, majestic figure 

Moving onward through all realms of Mind — 

TRUTH, the Sun of Hope before him ever 
Casting a long, dark shadowy Past behind. 

Music is the voice of those who speak not, 
Having thoughts too high for tongue to follow ; 

Songs that are true music, therefore, seek not 
Words, a discord unresolved and hollow. 

Thus will a womanly true singing woman 
Hear the martial beating of man's heart 

And feel it to be music vastly human — 
Far, far beyond the finger of his art. 



Temperance. 29 i 



TEMPERANCE. 

To gain an end that ends all is an ill. 

Tis better to have nothing than hold tight 
That which you cannot use ; for while uncrowned 

Thine energies have full liberty to fight — 
But crowned, they enslave themselves; their 
foreheads bound 
In irons forged in the heat of their own head- 
strong will. 



292 A Country Store Window. 



RICH WAGE-EARNERS. 

You Rich have gorged your brains 
With thick, fat, salaried Stuff 

At cost of scarce more pains 
Than undigested ''bluff " 
(Oh! learning's cheap enough 

If you can buy a Book) 

Thousands starve in our street 

Who can (and some do) cook 
The salaries yoit eat. 
These are the men you cheat. 



The End and the Means. 293 



THE END AND THE MEANS. 

Dost thou, then, wish to glean — 

Tares at some harvest time? 
For God's end justifies fair mean, 

But thin^ end is a crime. 

Still may'st thou reach God's end 

By means of God abhorred; 
But canst thou thus thy Soul defend 

And claim a fair reward? 

Ends are in God's control; 

Trust Him. Take thou but care 
By what means thou shalt touch His goal; 

By foul means or by fair? 



f 



294 A Country Store Window. 



THE MEANS TO AN END. 

Man must not live by what he loves ! 

But by something that sorely racks him. 
(That Artists are immoral proves 

The truth of this old-fashioned Maxim!) 

Music, Literature and Art, 

Thus valued sheerly at cost price, 
Must, therefore, play so small a part 

We lose them without sacrifice. 

Goethe, Mendelssohn, St. Paul, 

Whose v/ork was their sublimest pleasure. 
Look ridiculously small 

'Trocrusted" on this moral measure. 

The world may justly, then, conclude: 
To men who love their work of giving 

It owes no bread nor gratitude, 

Because — because they love their "living." 

Sickness is the price men pay for wealth ; 

And money man uiust have if he would live: 
Yet what is such a life bankrupt of health? 

What more than Money can such living give? 



The Means to an End. 295 

O, Native Gift of man, full cruse of Oil, 

How cheaply hast thou paid thyself with Gold ! 

Smothering the Spring Divine of all thy toil ! 
Flow, flow, else art thou doomed when thou art 
tolled. 



296 A Country Store Window. 



C3iRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

Truth, Hypocrites, will overcome your Smirk 
And be your Power which now you eye 
askance ; 

For Truth will overcome the World with work 
And never a backward step in his advance. 

Christians! you are no better than the rest 
While you your Truth have knowingly sac- 
rificed. 
Ah ! your Success comes wholly of your Best, 
The invincible Truth of your own Church of 
Christ. 



The Little Plaster Gods. 297 



THE LITTLE PLASTER GODS. 

Did you ever hear of that wonderful Doll 

Made by a commonplace man, 
Who, coming to think of himself as a fool 
(Since he never was trusted except as a tool) 
Made himself over again by the rule 

Of a bright and original plan ? 

Those Wise Conceits who had kept him down 

As a puppet by fits and starts 
Declared him a fool who should lack their own 
Assurance and money and manners and gown 
And general air of owning the Town ; 

They wanted a man of "parts." 



So into a Doll of many a "Part" 

Of rag and hair and plaster, 
With a cunning machine in the place of the heart. 
He made himself— Master of every art 
Of seeming ; he looked so knowing, so smart 

They made him, at once, their Master. 



298 A Country Store Window. 

Of the Commonplace Soul of the man, what be- 
came — 

I'll let you guess and gather; 
Though being himself unknown to fame, 
He had to provide his Doll with a name, 
So then, that all men might revere the same, 

He named him — **The Son of his Father.' 



The Real Man. 299 



THE REAL MAN. 



I. 



Men only and all men make up the State. 
As the rich Sea, when shaken by the Wind, 
Throws up strange things for men to wonder 

at 
When the tide calmly breathes along the shore, 
This life of busy Nations stirred by War 
Throws strange men on Time's sands, some 

great, but that 
Time, when she gathers them in calmer mind, 

Will see to; for the rest all men are great. 



II. 



What if a World should blow its scornful blight 
Upon its best men's best ? He o'erlooks Fame 

Who can scorn petty things and lift his sight 
Out of a sidelong leer at praise and blame. 



300 A Country Store Window. 

Leave your Soul's depth behind and climb your 
Might 

Depth will increase itself with high endeavor; 
Earth cannot measure one Soul's depth or height 

For Man's true greatness is in climbing ever. 
Pure Depths of Light, invisible so far, 
We follow you to many a visible Star 
Without a Spectroscope : we trust you as you are. 



Ill 



Failure ! Thou hast left a little oil 

Always. Though thy House be desolate 

A mockery to man and storehouse of the wind, 

Pour out that little ere that little spoil, 

And pay the debt thou owest to all mankind. 

That do unto a World that will not call thee great. 



Beethoven's First " Romance." 301 



BEETHOVEN'S FIRST ''ROMANCE/' 

*'Heaven's Song," sings this Master-Spirit 
"Stills the Storm that will not cease," 

Who close their ears may also hear it 
For our Song is "Perfect Peace." 



302 A Country Store Window. 



''YES'' OR "NO'? 

Blushing, your beautiful eyes cast down. 

You give your hand to me ; 
What if that glance were to disown 

Your ''No"! Ah, can it be? 

Loving, cotdd you forever keep 

Your soul in its disguise, 
But now and then with a longing peep! 

I fain would trust your eyes. 

Here's music — a few Songs for you — 

More than one, for choice ; 
Oh, sing to me one thing that's true — 

For I fain would trust vour voice! 

Although thine eyes have come to be 
Like moonshine to a troubled earth 

And make the very Soul of me 

Seem something more than it is worth, 

The mystery is but a madding pain 

A Misery mysterious which nothing can explain. 

Thy shining only leaves behind 

A trouble to my peace of mind ; 

I will not see your beautiful face again. 



O, Love. 305 



O, LOVE. 

'^Simofij I have somewhat to say unto thee." 

St. Luke, 7-40. 

Great Prophet of Simons and Poor women both^ 
Men, not in nature, differ, but in growth. 



304 A Country Store Window. 



MODERN ''ART" 

Once more is Galatea stone, 

Pygmalion but a savage. 
For knowledge hath of Genius none 

While Genius hath no knowledge. 



A Toast. 305 



A TOAST. 

Of all the good crumbs that are swept from the 
board 

The finest's a — what — d'ye — we — call 'em— 
A Toast (I had almost forgotten the word) 

*^Ab ovo usque ad Malum." 

For the sake of bread broken and customs that 
pass 

My dish for this dinner a toast is. 
Oh ! dip an occasional lip in your glass, 

A silent health to our hostess. 

Of all the bread broken and customs that pass 
The finest an old old-fashioned toast is; 

Drop a crumb of my toast in your cup or your 
glass, 
Think — and silently drink to our hostess. 



306 A Country Store Window. 



PROSE— "ET PRAETERIA NIHIL/' 

The Critic calls my Poetry "prose;" 

It may be so for all he knows. 

"Bad prose," he adds. Well, there are those 

Fools, philosophers, friends and foes 

Who say all poetry is bad prose. 



A Revision of my "Sketches." 307 



A REVISION OF MY "SKETCHES/* 

I FIND to live long in the World's noonday 

A Play must have a Plot : 
The World's a Plot, then, else a Play 

Is what the World is not. 



And yet if men were made to see 

Their parts in the Great Play unfurled 

No doubt this would appear to be 
Artistically a rounded World. 



So, after all, the truest plays 
Are those which strive to be 

But ''Sketches" of the broken rays 
Of an eclipsed Eternity. 



No, this attempt of callow days 
Is nothing to commend 

I'm seeking not for empty praise 
But only to defend 



308 A Country Store Window. 

A strutting Printer's Page that plays 

At being a real Book, 
And loves to ape the grown-up ways 

Of men and women folk. 



Youth. 309 



YOUTH. 

The Jester stills the bauble and the bells , 
Stands up to speak a word of earnest truth: 

''When we are young, to rise at dawn foretells 
That £:z.'^r-presence of the Sun of Youth ; 

And, though we live to what we call old age, 

He is a "Youth" still— who is then a Sage. 

Old men have sovv^n their hearts and reaped a 

thistle 

Before the Law calls youth of their age men — 

Youth that will neither moult nor cease to whistle 

Till they have passed their three-score years 

and ten. 

Oh! Youth is an epitome of Years 

Full spent in the Light of Morning, Noon and 

Even; 
Smiles are not laughter nor sad faces tears 
To veins that drink the given light of Heaven. 
"Whom the Gods love die young," breathes not 

a sigh 
For those who can keep young until they die. 



310 A Country Store Window. 



PROSPEROUS, CHEAP-SOULED PROPHETS. 

Degenerate descendants of Seers, 

There's a Sinister Bend in your work ; 

You are only the heirs of your peers, 

With your eyeglass, your shop-talk and smirk* 



The Flower of Refinement. 311 



THE FLOWER OF REFINEMENT! A "PHILIP- 
PINE'' PARTY. 

''Refine'^ your Philippine away 

In ditches at Pasig! 
At home you may hoot at 'em in your play 

And mimic 'em in a jig. 

With scanty dress and charcoal face 

And eyes made black and big, 
The crown of civil wit you place 

On a dirty, borrowed wig. 

Come, let's refine the FhiVippine 

And be ourselves the Pig; 
But, oh! for the Flower of Christian Power — 

We wouldn't give a fig ! 



312 A Country Store Window. 



THE QUESTION. 

This Question looks at every man: 
Is Life a gift or a proving fire? 

Shall I take from Life what good I can 
Or pass, unscathed, to something higher ? 

Life is a gift ; so drink thy fill : 

A gift of fire, of fire to leaven. 
Of fire to lift you, if you spill 

No flame about, to the heights, of heaven. 



Borrowed Feathers. 313 



BORROWED FEATHERS. 

Three wonderful, beautiful birds, sad to tell, 
alas ! 
Slaughtered and stripped of each beautiful 
wing 
To patch the frayed scalps of three plain would- 
be Delilahs, 
Awkward, who fly not nor yet can they sing. 

But why shouldn't they gather each cold, bor- 
rowed feather 
(The crown, of a commonplace Queen, such as 
Ann? 
It would hurt but their pride) and remake alto- 
gether, 
A flying and singing machine — if they can. 



314 A Country Store Window. 



THE REAL TR^ORLD. 

Like sultry clouds before a storm 

Come cares of this world on ; but who 
Would care, when some girl's soul and form 
Are all the world and Heaven, too. 
To you. 

Cares are but shadows whose control 
Lies in the Light of one that's loved; 

Sun effects that prove the Soul, 

Though touched by shadows, yet unmoved. 



The Soul to the Body. 315 



THE SOUL TO THE BODY. 

Could you strike but a spark 

I knozv I could love you 

And kindle a flame 

That should wrap you and move you 

Out of the dark; 

Quicken you, prove you, 

And give you a Name. 



316 A Country Store Window. 



THE FEMININE SPIRIT. 

How melanch'ly the last refrain 
The "good-bye/' the ''farewell"; 

Whether we part to meet again 
Who can tell, who can tell ? 

An "Au Revoir" is nothing more 

Than Hope and often ends 
(However much we look before) 

In "good-bye" to our friends. 

Yes, she has gone. O, Riverdale 
How can ye bloom hereafter? 

To me your Summer has grown pale 
And doth not ring with laughter, 

Your beautiful Summer hath grown pale 
And cannot ring with laughter. 

Your brightness hath no light for me 

Because the only light 
You had, that ever I could see 

Was borrowed day and night. 



The Feminine Spirit. 317 

Her face was oval, pale ; 

Her fine eyes dark and bright; 
And though so small, so frail, 

She seemed true woman's height. 



Yes, such was the ideai 

To which my thoughts all ran 

'Twas she who made me feel 
*Twas good to be a man. 



'Twas she who drew my best, 
As many women dare. 

Out of my wounded breast 
And left a poison there. 



*Twas she who lured my Soul 
Out of my bosom's deep 

And left it on a shoal 
To waste and weep. 



The woman whose Soul I loved 
For its breath of heaven, 

Alas, hath careless proved, 
Ay, soulless even. 



318 A Country Store Window. 

Oh ! that she with whose Spirit I strove 

Her heaven to share, 
Alas, should soulless prove 

To my Soul's welfare. 



To remember the days of pain 
With a woman once loved 

Is to love the woman again, 
Though thrice false proved. 



So — send me another face 
For another past? 
Perchance to find some grace 
In a woman at last? 



Yes. Grant me another youth 

For another past? 
Perchance to find some truth 

In a face at last. 



Whether we part to meet again 
Who can tell ? I will not care 

Although that parting was all pain 
And I remember you were fair. 



The Feminine Spirit. 319 

How melanch'ly the last refrain 
The "good-bye," the "farewell"; 

Whether we part to meet again 
None save her Soul can tell. 



11. 

Dear, how you scorn me 
While I am pleading! 

What though you warn me? 
Love is unheeding. 

Yes, and you snare for me 
When our lives sever — 

Proof that you care for me- 
Always — or never. 

What is a woman! 

Win her who can. 
She is not a human 

One-sided man. 

Broadly she sees us 

In our devotion; 
Trying to please us, 

Swells like the ocean; 



320 A Country Store Window. 

Light as the waves are, 

Deep as the sea; 
There, where our graves are, 

There is she; 

She who hath found us 

On the sea foam, 
Played with us, drowned us, 

Taken us home ; 

She who hath charmed us. 
Lured us with flotsam, 

Buried us, calmed us 
Deep in her bosom ; 

She who alarms us 

Out of our sleep, 
Nerves us and arms us 

By something — to keep; 

Kissed us and crowned us 
Lord of her home! 

May such love surround us 
Till Kingdom come! 



A Note on Keats. 321 



A NOTE ON KEATS. 

Whence, whence comes this completeness 

So long before its prime? 
As note of Native Sweetness 

Grows not old with time. 

Not unripe is it, either, 

When the heart first beats. 
He is a Music breather 

This immortal Keats. 



322 A Country Store Window. 



SHAKESPEARE, 

Nations, looking for one that was to be 
The very Mind of Nature, made many a crown. 
But placed it on the brews of lesser men 
Hailing them ''Shakespeare, the Great Poet"; — 

when 
England awoke and found the man was he, 
Her Shakespeare, dead, whom she had scarcely 

known. 



Too late for Crowns, then, for himself had 
wrought 

A crown immortal for the m.ortal brow 

Thrown back for Light upon the world below, 
Bent forward in an ecstasy of thought. 
The Real idealized, again made real, 

Hath touched to Light man's Star of Destiny, 
And man, to realize his true Ideal 

Follows — where Shakespeare teaches him to 
see. 



Shakespeare. 323 

II. 

The Earth, too shallow even for a grave, 

Is peopled with Shades, and not a Generation ; 
Her facts, like the fleeing Shadows of a wave, 

Glide darkly o'er a boundless Imagination. 
III. 
Indeed, what do we gain to show 

That Shakespeare's Name is not Shakespeare? 
The Man is still the Man we know, 
Call him what you will; although 

No other Name is half so dear. 



324 A Country Store Window. 



THE BUSINESS PROSTITUTE. 

Swearing, lying, bullying, cheating. 

To tickle Master Gold, 
With extra fleece you wander, bleating, 

Home to the pretty fold. 



Trim Misers, with your business cant 
**We must do thus to live," 

You would not be so apt to ''want" 
Were you more apt to give. 



Yourself you cheat but once a week — 

You pray with many a nod ; 
Or through gloved fingers, tongue in cheek, 

You grin at man — and God. 



Sleek Martyrs to the Common Lot, 

Who tell us with a sigh 
That "men must live" — liave you forgot 

That men must also dief 



The Religion in Fashion. 325 



THE RELIGION IN FASHION. 
'*This Man Blasphcmeth" t 

O, You who rarely think of God, 
Whose Name is, yet, upon your lips 
To swear, "By God," between two sips, 

The wine you drink is fairly good ; 

Must we appease you in the end, 

{You choose to call us, now, profane!) 

As though we cared to call you friend 
And soothe your hypocritic pain? 

You are the kind that would do that ! 

But here we preach, and that's the worst, 
Because our preaching would fall flat 

Were you to cry, ''Heal yourselves first." 

Ye frivolous fools that wag the head 
And mock at what perchance may lead 
To naming God, O, Sirs, take heed 

Lest you mock that Vvdiich is not dead. 



326 A Country Store Window. 

Oh! let us see your faces fall, 

Grow grave for once, think us profane- 
Are ye not fools to take in vain 

Rather than not take at all! 



An Appeal. 327 



AN APPEAL TO THE HONOR OF REPUTABLE 
AUTHORS. 

''What's in a Name," the Critic cries. 

Without pretending to be wise, 
Though Roses hold green worms and flies 

And all that in a Rose-bush lies, 

What Rose-bush would not blush for shame 
At offering worms in the Roses name? 

There's but one Bush so much to blame, 
Thev have mis-called it, sometimes 'Tame." 



328 A Country Store Window. 



MARY BLESSINGTON IN ''A CUP OF TEA/ 

Mary Blessington, they say, 

Can act no better than she ought; 

And yet they put her in a Play, 

Thinking, perhaps, she could be taught. 

O, Amateurs, have you the skill 

To coach a child that's woman grown? 

Mary, thank Heaven, is Mary still ; 

A flower full-bloom, a flower half -blown. 

Mary Blessington, they say, 

Is just as sweet as she can be; 
Ah! now I know the reason they 

Have put her in ''A Cup of Tea." 



To Mr. and Mrs. A. T. 329 



TO MR. AND MRS. A. T. 

I LONGED in former days 

For something like a curse; 
I longed for perfect praise, 

For my imperfect verse. 

That such a bargain pays 

Behold my Self-esteem ! 
Yet, alas ! for naught of mine is worth your 
praise — 

Save only my present theme. 



330 A Country Store Window. 



THE CRYSTAL COMMONWEALTH. 

Out of his Youth's Home, 
The Son who will be great ; 

Who rises thenceforth to become 
The Father of a State. 



So many to one end, 
Republics each and all, 

God and one country to defend 
Each at a brother's call. 



Forty-five free States 

To one cause lift their prayers ; 
March out to salute their unknown mates 

And make one hero theirs. 



God, 'tis a stirring- thought 

That, million after million, 
Men, of their own free will, have brought 

One flag to one Civilian. 



The Crystal Common v/ealth 331 

And a still deeper thought — 

These Commonwealths of Ours 
(Once rent in twain, now wrought in one) 
Whose dawning Mission hath begun 
To rise, before scarce knew they sought — 

A Commonwealth of Powers. 



332 A Country Store Window. 



A TEMPERANCE SERMON. 

by an after-dinner speaker. 

Texts : 

*'Let your Light so shine/' etc. 

"Believe not every Spirit." 

''Arise, shine, for thy Light has come.'* 

Oh ! wait till you get to be forty, 

Young men of intemperate blood, 
And, then, if you've tried to be naughty, 

You'll wish you had tried to be good; 

When the Asses' Banquet is over 
And the Barmecide Feast begins; 

When your sumptuous crop of red clover 
Is chewed in the cud of white sins ; 

When the glory of youth goes — a-smoke 

(When it should have burned out, but has 
not) 

And the fire's dead. — Is it a joke 
To be cold when you want to be hot? 



A Temperance Sermon. 333 

Now, look you, I point you a moral 

Which all of us knozv to be true ; 
Thus, Ass that I am, I must quarrel 

With other Asses like you; 

Just as you, too, are as blatant 

O'er truths I'm pretending to scorn. 

By my faith, were all Truths really patent, 
Oh ! where were the need to be born. 

Every man^s truth is the newest 
Who finds it himself — but don't preach; 

For me my ozvn truth is the truest, 
And that's a good gospel for each. 

So here's to the man who holds steady 

By all that he feels to be good — 
But, I warn you, this wine is too heady 

For men of intemperate blood. 

Then speak not your Truth, till the Spirit 
Is flashed from you at a true call 

Through the dark — as the light of one planet 
Lends light to the Light of them all. 



334 A Country Store Window. 



TO NIKOLA TESLA. 

lOn the Fire which seemed to destroy the work 
of years. 

No, Tesla ! Burnt up by no fire 
Save the fire of your brain ; 

Your work's a heap of ashes here, 

Here of living coal — but higher 

In the purer atmosphere 
You begin your work again. 



The Spirit of " Walden." 335 



THE SPIRIT OF **WALDEN/' 

Possession ! But why should we strive 
To grasp more than our needs can hold? 

For just enough keeps man alive; 

On more than that he cannot thrive. 
And thus it is with Gold. 

In much less than one hundred years 

I go whence I shall not return, 
And all this Dust unto my heirs 
I leave, which they must leave to theirs, 

Or give away — or burn. 

That Mass, the World's Wealth, is no more 
Than Earth, nor better than her mould; 

And man, first poor, then rich, then poor, 

Although of Gold, he leave a store 
In measure manifold, 

Makes Earth no richer than before — 
To Earth belongs all Gold. 



336 A Country Store Window. 



CAPITAL PUNISHMENT* 

No man can taste Death and yet live. 

It doth seem a strange Sport 
That Justice can see fit to give 

A pain none can report! 



A Letter. 337 



LETTER TO DR» PONTIFEX MAXIMUS GILT^ 
EDGE.— FROM JOHN SMITH. 

Dear Dr. Giltedge : 

You're the Editor 
Of the most eclectic magazine 

That ever gathered rain to shed it o'er 
The blazing beauty of mid-summer green! 
Read — yet stop! should you praise my play, for 

once 
You'd run the risk of being thought a dunce. 

Well, read my play as fairly, Mr. Editor, 

At least as you'd spell out a classic ode — 
But spare me your opinion, when you've read it 
o'er, 
That is no guide-post to the Public Road. 
I say "at least," for one may be enchanted 
With ease where one can take the good for 
granted. 

But I am glad you think my play so fine, 

Though how th^ devil did you ever guess it! 

There's nothing in the play to show it's mine — 
Except my name and that would hardly bless it. 



338 A Country Store Window. 

Ah! since I've lured your Public to my level 
Must you, too, follow then, to please the devil? 

I can't help thinking, by your honeyed tones, 
You have mistook the Author of my play ; 

For ''Smith" is not a pseudo-nym for Jones, 
The Author of the "Masqueraders," say. 

My play is all mine own — and so's my name 

(That is, as much as any Smith can claim.) 

Oh! how ungrateful thus to cast a doubt 
On your sincerity. O, Friend in deed, 

Accept my thanks (which you can do without) 
For praise (of which I do not stand in need). 

Oh ! that of all the praise bestowed on you 

You could have earlier spared a w^ord or two. 



Prisons and Colleges. 339 



PRISONS AND COLLEGES. 

A Prison makes man downright bad 
Where he was merely weak before; 

A College takes one callow lad 

And thence turns fools out by the score. 

A Prison's no place for the Good — 
A College no place for the Great; 

For Colleges and Prisons would 
Reduce all men to the same state. 



340 A Country Store Window. 



THE NEW WOMAN. 

"An Ape has," some one said — 
''His human counterpart;" — 

An Ape can stand firm on his head, 
The world, firm on its heart. 

In spite of the New Woman 
This world will not be led 

To risk that feat inhuman 
Of standing on its head. 



The Feathered Finger. 341 



THE FEATHERED FINGER. 



All night would the Owl complain . 

With a stare from that big yellow eye 
That sent a shiver a-down the rain 

As far as an Owl can fly, 

Just far enough to light the ground 

Where his feathers 'neath the rain would linger 

Gathered again without a sound 

By someone with a feathered finger. 

As in and out that finger stole 

Soulless it seemed. I wonder why? 

That everybody hath a Soul 
How can we tell until we die? 

Save the assurance that Christ died 
For every man — we could not tell. 

Come, Memory, thy tablets hide 
And break this melancholy spell. 



342 A Country Store Window. 
II. 

The Elder Maid stooped down and said: 
*'Wee sister, how much do you love me?" 

The little Miss gave her a kiss 

And sighed ''As far as you're above me." 

''But tell me when you love me best." 
The child looked wise, said, "Let me see. 

Yes, when you stoop down to be kisser^ 
But best of all when you kiss me." 

And then the little girl with laughter 

Full of love ran to her sister, 
Smothered the laugh in her lap and after 

Looked up shyly, flushed and kissed her. 

With yearning infinite the elder 

With a kiss to make the younger linger 

Lovingly in her arms close held her 
And caressed a — feathered finger. 

TIL 

Her Soul rises free from the fallen veil ; 

Divinely she shines in the Holy Place. 
Though the richly wrought Form in the grave 
wax pale 

Yet the Soul is more beautiful than the face. 



The Feathered Finger. 343 



IV. 

In the Palace of Truth, in the River 

Lethe, the Life of the Sleeping, 
There's a magical, mystical Mirror 
In a sweat of continual terror, 

A Silence, despairing and weeping — 
And staring. 
Back to back are the eyes of the Mirror, 

Millions transparently clear, 
But their look is habitual terror 

Born of a horrible fear. 

Through the Windows and Doors of the Palace 
Lethe, the River, keeps creeping 
And stealing 
Along by the feet of the Mirror, 
Depositing Burdens of Terror, 

The Souls of those who judge, sleeping. 
Reviling their foes and revealing 
The Truth. 

There's a Palace of Truth and of Terror 

Where no Soul itself may forget. 
For that mystical, magical Mirror 

Keeps tracing all Souls in her sweat. 



344 A Country Store Window. 

Said one Soul to another there 

"Would you give your Soul to your Sister ?'* 
''No!" she answered that Spirit fair, 

And that Spirit stooped and kissed her. 



" To the Glory of God." 345 



TO THE GLORY OF GOD, IN MEMORY OF 
J. J. BOMBASTER/' 

Hoiv can this Stone, in memory 

Of one, J. J. Bombaster, 
Be to God's Glory? Such as he, 

Who rise again in plaster 
'To the Glory of God," oh ! will they be 

Remembered— by their Master? 

A thief, whom men once doomed to be 

Raised to a cross of shame, 
Sighed as he died "Remember me, 

Lord!" — and his answer came 
''Verily shalt thou be with me 

This night"— what was his name? 



346 A Country Store Window. 



BOHEMIAN ♦^MIMI." 
Lines written on her Fan. 

Some people really are of sin half glad, 
Because 'tis not yet clearly understood 

(A mooted question still among the bad) 
Whether 'tis better to be bad or good. 

So argues the ''Bohemian" Philosopher; 

Self-styled; a fool he proves himself to go so far. 

For, though a little laughter in the eye, 
Like pepper in your soup, is a good fault, 

You mustn't laugh enough to make you cry 
And turn the pepper to a sea of Salt. 

T say, to see a little of Bohemy 

Behind a fan is pepper to the squeamy. 



There's nothing in this flirting World 
So dangerous as a fan unfurled; 

Therefore, if you are a man, 
Fold it and keep it — if you can. 



Bohemian "Mimi." 347 

Ah! well, I will return your fan; 

Not that I think you need it, 
Alas, but that some brother man 

May profitably "read'' it. 

Favored indeed were this favor fan, 

With one so fair to pray for it. 
Were it not doomed by many a man 

To be his stolen favorite. 

O, Mimi, your "Bohemia'* 

Holds you too good for man; 
Yet Earth holds nothing — "Mimier" 

Than this Bohemian Fan. 



348 A Country Store Window. 



THE AUTHOR. 



It sounds, you say, too much like Hood ; 
By Hood, then, let it be ! 
What matter ; if only the poem be good, 
Whether by Hood— or me? 



An Apology. 349 



AN APOLOGY FOR BEING " INVOLVED/' 

Though there are no new facts beneath the Sun, 
Facts hold as many harmonies of Light 

As there are harmonies of Sound in one 

Great Scale of Nature still for man to write. 

Why should I tell you two and two makes four? 

Long, long ago, Pan piped that simple Song; 

And, to be charmed now, ears need something 

more 

(Maybe because men's ears have grown so 

long!) 

Twice eight are sixteen ; the square root of which 
Is just the same as two and two — no less — 

But an idea more difficult to teach 

For difficult thoughts are difficult to express. 

Ah! Cost it no pains to get your ''New" song 
heard 

The thought therein would not be worth a word. 



350 A Country Store Window. 



THE AGNOSTIC ''CIRCLE/' 

Yes; perfect as the perfect Circle — wrought! 

Your way entire at every point is seen, 
So short is your diameter of thought ; 

Nothing to hope for beyond that routine. 

Good God, you human ground moles feel the 
rain 

And know so blindly you are but half beast, 
Can nothing shatter that ''Circle" of your brain 

And prophesy a Sunrise in the East? 

Arrogant Mockers of miracles, how brief 
Your Glory! For you cannot, being blind, 

See beyond, by Act of Pure Belief, 

The circumscribed horizon of your Mind. 



"Handle Me and See!" 351 



** HANDLE ME AND SEEl" 

Behold the Resurrection you have longed to 
prove, 
The deathless Flower of Death, Life's incor- 
ruptible Bloom! 
No more this groping, toiling blindly in a groove ; 
Arise, shine, for thy Light hath risen from the 
tomb. 



352 A Country Store Window. 



A POSSIBLE USE FOR MY POEMS. 

Should my 'Tottery" stand or fall 

At the braying of an ass, 
Then let it serve as a cat-call 

To send the cloven-foot to grass. 



Life's Paradox. 353 



LIFERS PARADOX. 

Tombs of the Famed on the barren Hill of Mars ! 

— Success hath capped thee, Art, too near the 

ground ; 

But Failure must raise her Temple above the 

Stars, 

Behind the clouds, or ever the top is crowned. 

Success is failure laid aside forever, 
A pagan promise on an arid hill — 

But Failure is an undiscovered river 
A fertile flowing with the Ocean's will 
Where yet no ship hath been nor any kind of 
Mill. 



354 A Country Store Window. 



THE COMFORTER, 

The finest joy a man can know, 

Scattered in youth, takes root in tears — 

Love, the Life-tree, cannot grow 
Otherwise to perfect years. 

Is this the value of all pain 

The power of all the tears we shed? 
Yes, yes, for tears give back again 

Our Failures raised as from the dead. 

However dark our sunless shadows move 
They leave no record on Life's dial plate 

'Till pain comes, failure — 'till thou, Son of Love, 
Com'st to transfigure these and make them 
great. 



Modern Art. 335 



MODERN ART. 

Artists create a jewelled "Loving Cup" — 
Never to touch the lips of human lovers; 

Poets pick foreign words and line them up 
Between two antique, curiously wrought 
covers. 

Connoisseurs with foolishly wise face 

Faults see, but the Great Failure overlook — 

Facsimiles so sadly out of place, 
One as a loving cup, one as a Book. 

You wordy affectations of sad thought. 
Betray the dignity and use of Leather! 

Elaborate designs on practics wrought 

Play blind-man's buff with the use and art of 
either. 



356 A Country Store Window. 



SONG, 

I WAS breaking my heart o'er a token 
To send you, a song to be sung, 

When you proved that *t was easier broken^ 
By bidding me — hold my tongue. 



"Whom the Lord Loveth." 357 



WHOM THE LORD LOVETH HE CHASTEN 
ETW* 

Lift thine eyes, thou broken-hearted; 
Weep not for this fonn departed: 
'Tis no more himself that's gone 
Than his shadow done in stone. 
This is not the man ye knew, 
Tis but a sketch thy poor eyes dreW! 
Of what must ever lie behind 
Life's veil. He is not even asleep, 
And yet, think'st thou thou art alone ?i 

Weep not — and yet if thou rdust weej^ 
Weep that thine eyes are still too blind. 
Too full of crying to believe 

What thy mortality forbids; 
Soon thou'lt be sighing to receive 

A rainbow caught between the lids. 



358 A Country Store Window. 



THE PANORAMA. 

Laughing, crying, 

Life goes flying 
Past all pleasure, past all pain; 

And our speeding 

A receding 
To be journeyed o'er again. 



In the Philippines. 359 



IN THE PHILIPPINES, FEBRUARY, ^899* 

The Captive's cry is an alarm 
Freemen will not let drown — 

This Liberator lifts his arm 
To strike the Captive down! 



Faith, blindly, in both hands, hath given 
Stretched out to him her gains; 

Those freed hands simply clasped to- heaven 
Receive from him but chains. 



Fighting for freedom — a device 

Unworthy of the brave. 
Since the new lord pays a generous price 

For this ungrateful slave 



Who cries out, trusting not beyond 

The letter of the Writ : 
"/ am not mentioned in your bond, 

Thou canting hypocrite!" 



360 A Country Store Window. 

'Tis so; when faith begins to shake 

On reeds of broken law 
Then must the tyrant learn to bake 

His ozi'Ji bricks — without straw. 

Just God, when faith hath learned to weep 

Bowed down into the dust 
Then must the tyrant learn to reap 

Long harvests of mistrust. 

Stay Thou the hypocritic hand 

That murders in Thy name ; 
A bloody smell corrupts the land, 

A shameless deed of shame. 

. The cannon's mouth blurts out unshamed 
Its blatant vanity — 
And every heart it tortures — claimed 
For Christianity! 

By cut and thrust the boastful sword 

Bullies above the brave 
Who bought in faith our damaged word 

That we had come to save. 



Broad Puritanism 361 



BROAD PURITANISM. 

As were the days of staff and scrip 
So were the days of stock and whip 

Once acorns of a ruling creed ; 
Ere they can take a broader grip, 

Growing things must go to seed. 

To taper down from an excess 
Is wise for those who do exceed, 

Alas, the many! — None the less 

The wise man holds that ruling creed 

Which Nature teaches him to think- 
To broaden up from narrowness, 

To grow, is better than to shrink. 

None but a fool would care to slip 
Just punishment and turn to laughter; 

Since Justice-rfr^^^ imist pass the lip 
I'd rather die here than hereafter. 

Nay, none but a fool would dare to slip 
Just punishm.ent, for fear of worse; 

Since Justice-dregs but touch the lip 
Drink now — escace the coward's curse. 



362 A Country Store Window. 



ANYBODY'S VISDOM. 

Dost foresee a heavy sorrow 
In the days that are to be? 
Let it flee unto the morrow — 
If thou canst foresee, 
Rest, let it flee. 

Come, Sorrow, come whene'er you will ; 

We're ready ; though we stand at ease 
And drain sweet joys, we but refill 

The cup. When pleasures cease 

Then sorrows please. 

Present joys are sorrows past ; 

Then welcome sorrows such as these. 
Are they not better first than last? 

Youth, whistling up a breeze. 

May conquer seas. 



A Miracle. 363 



A MIRACLE. 

Yes, here am I past 50 years of age 
And sighing like a schoolboy for a girl; 

'Though thirty love years burn upon Life's page 
Its edges have not yet began to curl. 

No, life grows ever larger, brighter, newer 

As the years burn on since first I spoke love to 
her. 



364 A Country Store Window. 



REALITIES AND REFLECTIONS. 

Ev'n Shakespeare shows you but his eyes 
Not what behind that mirror lies. 



If you see friend or foe therein 
'Tis but reflection of his skin. 



As far as you yourself have grace 
You'll penetrate behind that face. 

Beauty must have faces two; 
False to false and true to true. 

God grant me honest — for I see 
Faces beautiful to me. 



Emerson. 365 



EMERSON. 

What ! Can there be no new 
Real Poet 'neath the Sun ! 

Oh ! but there are so few — 
And Emerson is one! 



366 A Country Store Window, 



WEA.THER-WISDOM. 

O, Serio-comic Fame, thy Manuscript 

Lies quivering in a bow! Come, trim the 
feather ; 
Hit or miss, at last the barb has slipt. 
You aimed straight — ^but you can't control the 
weather. 



Christ's Divine Birth. 367 



CHRIST'S DIVINE BIRTH. 

How can the truth of Christ's Divine Birth be 
doubted ? 

>Jo such vital legend of serious beauty can have 
been 

Imagined by man — it is sanctioned by the in- 
spiration 

Men have drawn from it for two thousand years. 

Who doubts but scares himself with his own 
fears — 

No mind can dawn on such a vital glory; 
An Inspiration of two thousand years 

Hath sanctioned this most exquisite, true story. 



368 A Country Store Window. 



MAGAZINE EDITORS. 

They can't look into things — 
They haven't got the time; 

They listen, while it sings. 
To the ripple of the rhyme. 



The Pack Horse. 369 



THE PACK HORSE. 

When I began to feel the oats I earned 
I worked to earn not only oats but clothes ; 

And when I looked for oats my master turned 
And gave me in his hand not oats — ^but oaths. 



370 A Country Store Window. 



MAN-THE TOUCHSTONE. 

By Virtue honor lives. The Stars, the Moon 
Are but self-decorations of the Sun 

Which fade in the heat of his heroic Noon ; 
They had no Hght to give him, had he none, 
For darkness covers all that looks to such 
one. 



Christmas Morning. 371 



CliRlSTMAS MORNING. 

Whispered the Angles just before Christ's 

Birth ; 
"Will God be born and die like men? Thii 

Morn 
Enter Man's life and be a Babe on Earth !" 
"Hush! it hath come to pass; the Babe is 

born." 
And, hurrying on, this new-starred Earth they 

sought 
Where Love was proving greater than even tht 

Angels thought. 



372 A Country Store Window. 



THE FIN-DESIECLE CRUSADER. 

The battle is good for the men who come 

To measure face to face; 
Good for the man — who marches home 

But — what for the human race? 

His brains are all bent to the battle goal 

And cannot pause for a whim 
Such as "honest confession is good for the Soul,'* 

And "leave the results to Him." 

No; but he's proud of just muscle and bone 
And wants to make room with his fist 

Which he calls, in a smug, sanctimonious tone, 
'The Strong Right Hand of Christ;" 

And protests that he follows the finger of God 

While God says he does not; 
He's but smitten again with the fever of blood 

And the cry of — God knows what ! 



The Friend. 373 



THE FRIEND. 

Blue sky and evening Star 
And the lighted Street below 

Where Souls that in the marble are 
Still flicker to and fro. 

Burning to some bright end 

But dimly seen afar, 
Each to some gazing friend 

Ev'n now is as a Star. 



374 A Country Store Window, 



CHILDREN, 

The night is long because it's dark 
And little folks no longer play; 

With all its lights 'tis but a spark 
That flickers by the sleepin- Day. 

I make my verses short as day 

And boast no Magnus Opus, for 
When / have nothing more to say 
I go to sleep and talk no more. 



My First Apology. 375 



MY FIRST APOLOGY^ 

You who still wonder and still care to ask 
(To whom the reading, therefore, was no task) 

Who may this writer be, alone deserve 
To be appeased, (though he still keep his 
mask) 

With this ''apology," kept in reserve; 
For you only have the right to blame 
A scribbler who deceives you with his name. 

An anonymity is vile 

I know, but I want you to wonder 

Who I am ; it is such fun to 
Make you wonder for a while. 

Just let it be enough to know 

We know each other. The fun over, 
Should you care then to discover, 

ril uncover, make my bow. 

Who have followed me so far and fast, 

This, my First Apology, read last. 

THE END. 



/^M -,. I 



MAR 26 1901 



